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University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


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JOHN  N.  EDWARDS 


BIOGRAPHY,    MEMOIRS,    REMINISCENCES    AND 
RECOLLECTIONS 


HIS  BRILLIANT  CAREER  AS  SOLDIER,  AUTHOR, 
AND  JOURNALIST 


CHOICE   COLLECTION  OF  HIS  MOST  NOTABLE  AND  INTERESTING 
NEWSPAPER  ARTICLES,  TOGETHER  WITH  SOME  UNPUB- 
LISHED POEMS  AND  MANY  PRIVATE  LETTERS. 


ALSO  A  REPRINT  OF 

SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO 

AN-  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR 


COMPILED   BY   HIS  WIFE 

JENNIE    EDWARDS 


KANSAS  CITY,  Mo. : 
JENNIE  EDWARDS,  PUBLISHER 

iSSg 


COPYRIGHTED 
JENNIE    EDWARDS 


DONOHUE  &  HENNEBERRY, 

PRINTERS  AND  BINDERS, 
CHICAGO. 


DEDICATION. 


TO  THE  FRIENDS  OF  MY  DEAD  HUSBAND, 
SOLDIERS  AND  CIVILIANS,  CONFEDERATES 
AND  FEDERALS,  DEMOCRATS  AND  REPUB- 
LICANS, I  INTRUST  THIS  WORK 

JENNIE  ED  WARDS. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

DEDICATION.    BY  JENNIE  EDWAKDS .'... 3 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.    BY  REV.  GEO.  PLATTENBURG..  .....  9 

TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.    BY  MORRISON  MUNFORD.  ...  37 

MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS  OF  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS: 

POOR  CARLOTA 65 

A  STRANGER  IN  A  STRANGE  LAND 66 

PILOT,  WHAT  OF  THE  SHIP  ? 68 

QUANTRELL 69 

THOMAS  BUCHANAN  READ 70 

JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT 71 

FENIMORE  COOPER 73 

SOHUYLER  COLFAX.  j 74 

BON  VOYAGE,  Miss  NELLIE 75 

LITTLE  NELSON  W.  DALBY 76 

HENRY  CLAY  DEAN 77 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 78 

GENERAL  ALBERT  SIDKEY  JOHNSTON 80 

KATKOFF 82 

A  FISH  STORY 84 

PROHIBITION 85 

ON  DEMOCRACY 88 

NOT  MEN  ENTIRELY 89 

EVERY  TUB  ON  ITS  OWN  BOTTOM 91 

BOURBON  DEMOCRACY  92 

A  VERY  PLAIN  REMEDY 93 

M.  TAINE  ON  NAPOLEON 95 

THE  STATUE  TO  CALHOUN 97 

CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL 98 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  FLAGS 99 

GENERAL  GORDON 100 

VICTOR  HUGO 102 

HENRY  M.  STANLEY 104 

DEATH  FROM  STARVATION 105 

IN  A  FOREIGN  LAND 107 

ALWAYS  ,A  WOMAN 108 

MORE  LITERARY  MUTILIATION 110 

CHRISTMAS   REJOICINGS Ill 

5 


Vi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

POOR  VALENTINE  BAKER 114 

ROSCOE  CONKLING 116 

ON  SOUTHERN  POETS 118 

As  TO  KING  DAVID ,  119 

DR.  JOSEPH  M.  WOOD 121 

WAR  QUAKER  FASHION 123 

WlLL-O'-THE-WlSP 124 

WOLESLEY  ON  McCLELLAN  AND  LEE  126 

CLEVELAND  RETIRES  TO  PRIVATE  LIFE 128 

WASHINGTON'S  BIRTHDAY , 130 

TIME  MAKES  ALL  THINGS  EVEN 132 

JAMES  N.  BURNES 134 

DEATH  OF  THE  PRINCE  IMPERIAL 137 

BAZAINE 138 

THE  NEY  MYTH 140 

DON  CARLOS  AND  MEXICO 142 

POOR  FRANCE 143 

EDMUND  O'DONOVAN.  . 146 

THE  REVISED  NEW  TESTAMENT 148 

THE  GERMAN  SUCCESSION 149 

A  NEW  REVISION  OF  THE  BIBLE 150 

THE  REVISED  BIBLE 150 

MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  COLLINS 152 

THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  NOVEL 152 

OUIDA  AND  ZOLA 154 

Is  DEATH  ALL? 155 

THE  NEW  YEAR 156 

WHOSE  FAULT  is  IT? 157 

GONE  DOWN  AT  SEA 158 

BETTER  WAR  BY  LAND  THAN  SEA 160 

A  CLOSE  CALL 161 

THE  KILLING  OF  JESSE  JAMES 163 

VETERAN  SAM  165 

ADDRESS  ACCEPTING  A  FLAG 167 

CARRIER'S  ADDRESS  OF  THE  MISSOURI  EXPOSITOR  ....  168 

MURDER  DONE;  OR,  THE  GYPSY'S  STORY 171 

THE  BIVOUAC  OF  THE  DEAD 174 

THE  MARRIAGE  OF  PERE  HYACINTHE 176 

NAPOLEON  AND  His  DETRACTORS 178 

THE  BEST  ONE  HUNDRED  BOOKS 180 

PERSONAL  TRIBUTES 181 

NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES 196 

SHELBY'S   EXPEDITION   TO   MEXICO.     AN   UNWRITTEN  LEAF 

OP  THE  WAR .  229 


JOHN    NEWMAN    EDWARDS 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

BY  REV.    GEO.    PLATTENBURG,  DOVER,   MO. 


The  subject  of  this  brief  sketch,  John  Newman 
Edwards,  was  born  in  Warren  County,  Va.,  January  4, 
1839.  Whilst  a  mere  boy  he  learned  tpye-setting  at  the 
town  of  Front  Royal,  a  place  now  of  great  and  heroic  mem- 
ories, in  the  Gazette  office,  a  paper  at  this  writing  called 
the  Sentinel.  Even  at  that  time  he  was  regarded  as  a  boy 
of  extraordinary  powers,  having,  at  the  immature  age  of 
fourteen  years,  as  testifies  a  contemporary,  written  a  story 
that  gave  him  "  wide  celebrity. "  While  yet  a  boy,  through 
the  influence  of  his  relation,  Thomas  J.  Yerby,  of  Lexing- 
ton, now  of  Marshall,  Mo.,  he  was  induced  to  come  to  the 
State  of  Missouri  in  1854  or  1855.  Arriving  in  Lexington, 
he  soon  thereafter  entered  upon  his  avocation  of  printer 
in  the  office  of  the  Expositor,  by  whom  conducted  I  do  not 
now  recall.  Here,  really,  began  the  education  of  this 
singularly  gifted  boy,  wjiose  manhood  was  to  be  so  rich  in 
strange  adventures  and  romance.  Of  schools  Major 
Edwards  knew  but  little,  his  advantages  of  this  kind  were 
limited  and  poor  in  character.  As  a  boy,  he  loved  soli- 
tude— this  peculiarity  in  manhood  made  him  shy  to  the 
verge  of  girlish  timidity.  He  loved  the  fields,  sweet  with 
"  the  breath  of  kine "  and  the  new-mown  hay.  He 
lingered  in  the  dim  vistas  of  the  woods,  and  from  out  their 
slumberous  shadows,  dreamily  watched  the  ceaseless  swirl 
of  the  great  river.  This  love  of  nature  and  its  communion, 


10  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

made  him  fond  of  the  hunt  and  the  pastime  of  gentle 
Izaak  Walton. 

His  life  during  these  years,  in  and  about  Lexington,  was 
of  the  ordinary  uneventful  character,  belonging  to  extreme 
youth  and  peaceful  times.  But  the  storm  was  brewing. 
The  distant  and  sullen  muttering  of  a  great  political 
upheaval  was  breaking  ominously  upon  the  nation's  ears. 
Great  questions  lying  radically  at  the  very  base  of  the  two 
antagonistic  conceptions  of  the  American  system  of  gov- 
ernment, were  loudly  and  hotly  contested  by  the  sections 
of  the  country.  The  slavery  question  was  not  the  cause, 
but  the  occasion  of  the  threatened  rupture.  Whatever 
men  may  say,  or  however  much  they  may  deplore  sectional 
'controversy,  there  were,  as  there  are,  but  two  great  drifts 
of  thought  as  to  the  true  theory  of  our  institutions,  the 
one,  denominated,  "  State  Rights/'  the  other,  the  steady 
trend  toward  centralization.  Leaving  the  truth  or 
falsity  of  these  contested  theories  out  of  the  question,  the 
fact  remains  that  out  of  them  came  one  of  the  mightiest 
struggles  known  to  the  annals  of  the  race.  The  rupture 
came.  The  "golden  bowl  was  broken,"  the  "silver  cord 
was  loosened,"  and  there  came  an  era  of  hate  and  blood 
that  all  good  men  ought  gladly  to  wish  to  be  forgotten. 

HIS  CAREER  AS  A  SOLDIER. 

It  is  at  this  juncture  that  Major  Edwards  began  his 
active  career.  In  the  year  1862,  Gen.  Jo.  0.  Shelby 
organized  a  regiment  near  Waverly,  Lafayette  County, 
Mo.  Of  this  regiment  Frank  Gordon  was  Lieutenant- 
Colonel.  Colonels  Shanks  and  Beal  G.  Jeans,  with  Capt. 
Ben  Elliott  in  command  of  a  battalion,  joined  and  united 
with  Shelby  at  this  point.  This  command  moved  on  the 
day  of  the  Lone  Jack  fight  with  a  view  of  forming  a  junc- 
tion with  Cockrell  and  Coffee.  The  forces  of  Shanks, 
Jeans,  and  Elliott,  with  his  own  regiment,  constituted  the 
original  force  under  Shelby.  Of  this  command,  after  the 
expiration  of  several  months,  upon  the  retirement  of 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  H 

Captain  Arthur,  John  N.  Edwards  received  the  appoint- 
ment of  Brigade- Adjutant,  with  the  rank  of  Major.  This 
occurred  in  the  month  of  September,  1863.  When  finally 
Shelby  was  promoted  to  the  command  of  a  division, 
Edwards  shared  the  fortune  of  his  generous  and  chival- 
rous leader  and  became  the  Adjutant  of  the  division,  I 
think  with  the  rank  of  Colonel,  though  of  this  I  have  no 
positive  evidence  at  hand.  In  this  positionhe  continued 
until  the  disbanding  of  the  whole  command  after  Lee's 
surrender. 

Shelby's  force,  as  we  have  seen,  left  Waverly  to 
form  a  junction  with  Cockrell  and  Coffee,  but  on  reaching 
Columbus  in  Johnson  County,  he  heard  of  the  Lone 
Jack  battle,  and  was  compelled  to  revise  his  plans. 
He  began  to  work  his  way  south,  invironed  by  almost 
indescribable  difficulties,  and  never  at  any  time  were  the 
experiences  and  dangers  of  this  •  illustrious  body  of  men 
greater  or  graver.  Care,  prudence  and  courage  of  the 
highest  order  were  manifested  in  successfully  making  this 
junction,  with  the  men  that  fought  at  Lone  Jack,  an 
accomplished  fact.  This  was  done  at  or  near  Newtonia, 
from  which  point  the  united  force  fell  back  to  McKissock's 
Springs,  in  Arkansas.  Of  this  force,  as  Senior  Colonel, 
Shelby  took  command,  Lieut. -Col.  Frank  Gordon  being 
at  the  head  of  the  old  regiment.  From  McKissock's  they 
fell  back  to  Cane  Hill,  a  place  made  memorable  years 
before  by  one  of  those  tragedies  so  incident  to  frontier  life 
of  almost  indescribable  horror.  Here  they  rested,  Hind- 
man  at  that  time  having  his  headquarters  at  Van  Buren. 
To  Shelby  was  given  the  arduous  and  dangerous  duty  of 
watching  and  contesting,  step  by  step,  the  Federal  advance 
from  Fayetteville.  It  was  necessarily  Shelby's  additional 
duty  to  cover  Hindman's  movements  at  Van  Buren,  Blount 
performing  a  like  service  for  Curtiss.  During  this  period 
the  splendid  soldierly  qualities  of  this  whole  command  were 
daily  exhibited.  The  soldier  alone  knows  the  hardships, 
and  the  demand  for  an  almost  superhuman  endurance  in 
this  form  of  military  service,  of  such  varied  fortune  of 
defeat  and  victory.  During  the  whole  period  immediately 


12  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

prior  to  the  battle  of  Prairie  Grove,  Shelby  held  the  posi- 
tion in  front  of  Hindman's  advance,  and  finally,  on  a  frosty 
December  morning,  he  opened  the  hard  contested  fight  of 
Prairie  Grove.  The  sad  December  night  before  the  battle 
is  thus  described  by  Major  Edwards  himself,  and  as  he 
alone  could  do  it:  "The  moon  this  night  had  been 
eclipsed,  too,  and  upon  many  of  the  soldiers  the  weird, 
mysterious  appearance  of  <the  sky,  the  pale,  ghost-like 
phantom  of  a  cloud  across  its  crimson  disc,  had  much  of 
superstitious  influence.  At  first,  when  the  glowing  camp 
fires  had  burned  low  'and  comfortable  a  great  flood  of 
radiance  was  pouring  over  the  mountains  and  silvering 
even  the  hoary  white  beard  of  the  moss  clustering  about 
the  blank,  bare  faces  of  the  precipices.  The  shadows  con- 
tracted finally.  The  moon  seemed  on  fire,  and  burned 
itself  to  ashes.  The  gigantic  buckler  of  the  heavens, 
studded  all  over  with  star-diamonds,  had  for  its  boss  a 
gloomy,  yellowish,  struggling  moon.  Like  a  wounded 
King,  it  seemed  to  bleed  royally  over  the  nearest  cloud, 
then  wrapt  its  dark  mantle  about  its  face,  even  as  Cassar 
did,  and  sink  gradually  into  extinction.  There  was  a 
hollow  grief  of  the  winds  among  the  trees,  and  the  snowy 
phantasm  of  the  frost  crinkled  and  rustled  its  gauze  robes 
under  foot.  The  men  talked  in  subdued  voices  around 
their  camp-fires,  and  were  anxious  to  draw  from  the 
eclipse  some  happy  augury.  Belief  exhibited  itself  on 
every  face  when  the  moon  at  least  shone  out  broad  and 
good,  and  the  dark  shadows  were  again  lit  up  with  tremu- 
lous rays  of  light." 

And  e'er  the  great  sun's  white  splendors  kissed  the  rime- 
robed  earth,  Shelby's  voice,  clear  as  a  bugle's  note,  came 
to  gallant  Shanks,  "Forward,  Major!"  And  since  the 
day  that  men  first  learned  war,  they  never  rode  with  more 
splendid  courage  into  battle;  not  one  of  all  these  men  but 
deserved  the  golden  spurs  of  chivalrous  knighthood. 
From  this  field,  stained  with  such  precious  blood  on  this 
chill  December  day,  Shelby  again  occupied  the  post  of 
honor  and  danger,  covering  Hindman's  retreat.  Falling 
back  slowly,  on  reaching  Van  Buren  he  found  that  General 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  13 

Hindman  had  abandoned  his  position  at  Van  Buren, 
and  had  fallen  back  to  Little  Rock.  Shelby  finally  went 
into  camp  at  Lewisburg,  on  the  Arkansas  River,  and 
became  virtually  an  outpost  of  Hindman's  command  at 
Little  Rock.  Shelby  in  all  this  service  acted  independ- 
ently, although  shortly  prior  to  the  Prairie  Grove  battle 
Shelby's  and  Marmaduke's  Brigades  had  been  united,  form- 
ing Marmaduke's  Division;  the  latter  becoming  Division 
Commander  by  virtue  of  a  Brigadier's  commission  at  that 
time  in  his  possession.  At  this  camp  was  organized  an 
expedition  into  Missouri,  the  leading  event  of  which  was 
the  capture  of  Springfield,  January  8,  1863.  But  being 
unable  to  hold  the  position  won,  they  moved  on  in  an 
easterly  direction  to  the  town  of  Hartsville,  where  a  dis- 
astrous defeat  was  sustained.  From  this  point  a  retreat 
was  effected,  and  the  force  went  finally  into  camp  at  Bates- 
ville,  on  the  "White  River  in  Arkansas.  Here,  probably  in 
the  month  of  April,  subsequent  to  the  events  described, 
was  organized  what  is  known  as  the  "  Cape  Girardeau 
Expedition,"  as  the  attack  upon  this  town  was  the  leading 
event  of  the  campaign,  where  the  subject  of  this  sketch 
was  wounded  and  taken  prisoner.  Some  time  prior  to  that 
measureless  blunder  of  a  most  pitiful  senility,  the  disastrous 
assault  upon  Helena,  Arkansas,  Major  Edwards  was 
exchanged  and  had  rejoined  his  command,  taking  part  in 
the  fateful  scenes  of  that  dark  day  when  so  many  gallant 
and  fearless  men  were  slaughtered  upon  the  altar  of  a 
boundless  stupidity.  Shelby  was  wounded  in  this  battle. 
His  command  then  moved  to  Jackson  Port,  where  he 
remained  until  the  Federal  advance  under  that  humane 
soldier,  General  Frederick  Steele,  was  made  on  Little  Rock. 
Shelby  was  commanded  to  take  position  on  Bayou  Metoe, 
to  watch  Steele's  advance  from  points  on  the  White  River. 
Price's  whole  force  was  then  occupying  an  intrenched 
position  on  the  Arkansas  River  immediately  opposite 
Little  Rock.  Colonel  Frank  Gordon's  regiment  was  occu- 
pying a  position  on  the  extremity  of  a  spur  of  Big  Rock, 
in  full  view  of  the  city.  In  all  the  scenes  before  Little 
Rock  Shelby's  division  was  a  very  large  part,  and  finally 


14  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

covered  Price's  retreat  from  the  city.  At  Arkadelphia 
another  expedition  into  Missouri  was  organized,  at  the 
earnest  solicitation  of  General  Shelby,  and  so  the  raid  of 
1863  was  inaugurated.  He  gained  permission  to  select  a 
number  of  men  from  eaeh  regiment  of  his  division,  to  the 
number  of  800.  After  a  single  day's  march  they  came 
within  the  enemy's  territory.  Marching  day  and  night, 
engaged  in  countless  skirmishes,  they  reached  and  captured 
Boonville  ;  from  thence  they  came  to  Marshall,  where  they 
were  surrounded  by  not  less  than  5,000  men  under 
Ewing,  Crittenden  and  Pleasonton.  The  two  formed  in 
front,  the  latter  in  the  rear.  After  three  or  four  hours' 
fighting,  Shelby  determined  to  cut  his  way  out,  and  an 
order  to  this  effect  was  borne  to  Colonel  Shanks  by  Major 
Edwards.  The  plan  was  successfully  accomplished  despite 
the  mighty  odds  against  them.  The  inequality  of  the 
forces  gave  especial  glory  to  the  deed. 

But  it  is  not  possible  in  a  brief  sketch  like  this  to  fol- 
low the  fortunes  of  this  band  of  noble  soldiers  under  so 
dashing  and  fearless  a  leader,  in  a  long  war.  Of  the 
scenes  so  tragic  of  this  vast  conflict  each  soldier  might  say 
with  Aeneas  as  he  recounted  the  miseries  and  the  fall  of 
Troy,  to  Dido  and  her  Tyrians,  until  the  sinking  stars 
invited  to  repose  "  Magna  Pars  Fui."  Of  the  great  con- 
test and  its  strangely  varied  fortunes  they  were  a  great 
part.  It  was  at  this  point  in  the  history  of  this  great 
internecine  struggle  that  Major  Edwards  began  to  receive 
that  military  prominence  he  so  richly  deserved.  As  a 
soldier,  he  was  not  only  brave  and  fearless,  and  wise  in 
council,  but  gentle,  tender,  courteous  to  the  humblest 
soldier  beneath  him.  As  he  was  whole-hearted  in  the 
cause  he  espoused,  so  dealt  he  kindly  with  the  men  that 
shared  his  convictions  and  the  fortunes  of  a  common  cause. 

I  here  employ, the  beautiful  tribute  of  Major  J.  F. 
Stonestreet,  who  shared  with  him  the  vicissitudes  of  a 
long  and  bitter  struggle.  It  is  better  said  than  I  could 
say  it : 

A  COMRADE'S  TRIBUTE. 

The  achievements  of  Shelby  and  his  men  are  matters 
of  history.  Of  them  all  Major  Edwards  was  the  hero. 
The  individual  instances  of  his  bravery  in  battle,  his 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  15 

wisdom  in  council,  his  tender  'solicitude  for  his  men,  his 
self-sacrificing  spirit,  would  fill  a  volume.  Major  J.  F. 
Stonestreet,  of  this  city,  who  was  with  him  until  he 
crossed  the  Rio  Grande  into  Mexico,  tells  well  the  story  of 
his  part  in  the  great  struggle. 

"  I  cannot  speak  of  John  Edwards  without  emotion," 
he  said.  "  He  was  the  noblest  man  of  the  many  noble 
men  who  took  part  in  the  great  struggle  in  the  West.  I 
can  not  begin  to  tell  of  all  the  instances  of  his  valor  in 
battle,  his  kindness  in  camp,  his  care  for  his  comrades,  his 
noble  self-sacrifice,  his  great  brain  and  noble  heart.  No 
one  but  those  who  were  with  him  in  those  dark  hours 
can  appreciate  his  magnificent  spirit.  He  was  only  a  boy 
when  he  joined  Gordon's  regiment,  but  he  soon  became 
the  hero  of  Shelby's  old  brigade.  It  was  a  grand  sight  to  see 
him  in  battle.  He  was  always  where  the  fight  was  thickest. 
He  was  absolutely  devoid  of  fear.  The  men  had  the  con- 
fidence in  him  that  they  would  have  had,  had  he  been  a  God. 
Their  trust  in  him  was  sublime.  He  had  a  genius  for  war. 
While  he  was  as  brave  as  a  lion,  his  courage  was  not  of  the 
rash,  impetuous  sort  that  led  him  into  foolhardy  under- 
takings. His  wisdom  was  as  great  as  his  bravery.  No  one 
appreciates  more  the  character  and  achievmentsof  General 
Shelby  than  I;  but  when  the  dark  days  came,  it  was  John 
Edwards  who,  more  than  anybody  else,  inspired  hope  in 
the  hearts  of  the  men,  cheered  and  encouraged  them,  and 
spurred  them  on  to  renewed  exertions. 

"This  self-sacrifice  was  noble.  I  have  seen  him  dis- 
mount and  give  his  horse  away  to  a  tired  trooper.  In  the 
hospital  once  I  saw  him  take  off  his  shirt  and  tear  it  up  for 
bandages  for  the  wounded,  not  knowing  when  or  how  he 
was  to  get  another  one.  I  have  seen  him  take  off  his  coat 
and  give  it  to  a  soldier  who,  he  thought,  was  more  in  need 
of  it.  His  spirit  was  so  gentle  that  it  hurt  him  more  to 
see  others  suffer  than  to  sufferhimself .  What  heroism  he 
displayed  in  that  awful  retreat  from  Westport !  Small- 
pox broke  out  among  the  men.  John  Ed  wards  feared  it  as 
little  as  he  did  the  bullets  of  the  enemy.  He  would  take 
a  soldier  with  the  small-pox  in  his  arms,  carry  him  to  the 
most  comfortable  place  that  could  be  secured,  and  nurse 
him  with  the  care  of  a  woman.  He  would  brave  any- 
thing to  secure  a  delicacy  for  a  sick  soldier.  When  we 
were  eating  horseflesh  on  that  awful  march,  and  the 
men  were  starving,  naked  and  ready  to  give  up,  it  was  he 
who  cheered  and  encouraged  them  and  held  them 
together.  His  heart  was  so  big  that  he  thought  of  every- 
body before  himself. 


16  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

"In  battle  lie  was  a  very  Mars;  in  camp  he  was  as 
gentle  as  a  woman.  The  men  loved  him,  and  little 
wonder.  He  could  never  do  enough  for  them.  Brave  men, 
all  of  them,  they  recognized  him  as  the  bravest  and  the 
brainiest.  '  Follow  me,  boys/  I  have  heard  him  cry/ and 
-I  will  take  you  where  the  bullets  are  the  thickest  and  the 
sabers  the  sharpest/  and  then,  his  sword  flashed  in  his 
hand,  he  would  be  off  to  where  the  fight  was  the  hottest. 
And  the  men  would  be  after  him  with  a  confidence  and 
devotion  that  insured  victory.  He  was  the  bravest  man  in 
war  and  the  gentlest  in  peace  that  I  ever  saw.  He  was 
the  soul  of  honor.  He  was  one  man  in  a  million.  He 
was  the  Chevalier  Bayard  of  Missouri." 

Notwithstanding  his  intrepid  bravery,  Major  Stone- 
street  says  he  was  badly  wounded  but  once.  That  was  in 
Marmaduke's  raid  on  Springfield,  when  he  was  shot  and 
taken  prisoner  in  the  fight  near  Hartsville.  He  was  after- 
ward exchanged  and  rejoined  his  regiment  at  Jackson- 
ville, Ark.  He  especially  distinguished  himself  for 
bravery  and  strategy  in  the  4th  of  July  fight  at  Helena, 
which  was  in  progress  when  Vicksburg  surrendered.  It 
was  said  of  him  that  he  had  more  horses  shot  from  under 
him,  and  gave  more  horses  away  to  those  whom  he  thought 
needed  them  more  than  himself,  than  any  man  in  Shelby's 
brigade. 

So  testifies  one  who  knew  John  Edwards  through  all 
the  trying  scenes  of  a  contest  all  too  bitter,  and  who  loved 
him  well.  John  Edwards  was  a  born  soldier.  The  genius 
of  war  and  the  genius  of  poetry  alike  presided  at  his 
birth.  The  courage  of  the  Knight  and  the  poesy  of  the 
Troubadour  were  alike  his.  He  crowned  the  brow  of  war 
with  golden  nimbus  of  the  poet.  For  his  deft  fingers  the 
brand  of  the  grizzled  grenadier  and  the  minstrel's  lute 
were  alike  fashioned.  He  brought  the  chivalry  and  song 
of  the  thirteenth  into  the  Titanic  struggles  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

An  officer  once  bore  a  report  of  General  Shelby's  to  Gen- 
eral Holmes,  who  on  reading  it  exclaimed  with  an  impious 
expletive:  "Why,  Shelby  is  a  poet  as  well  as  a  fighter!" 
"No,  replied  the  officer,  but  his  Adjutant  is  a  born  poet." 
It  was  this  remarkable  combination  of  elements  in  Major 
Edwards  that  made  him  as  brave  and  fearless  as  he  was 
tender  and  gentle.  It  also  accounts  for  the  strong, 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  17 

religious  sentiment  of  his  nature  mentioned  in  a  brief 
speech  at  his  grave.  Belief  in  the  supernatural  elements 
of  religion  and  poesy  go  hand  in  hand.  Goethe  stated  a 
very  large  and  a  very  fundamental  truth  when  he  wrote, 
"Der  Aberglaube  ist  die  Poesie  des  Lebens" — the  "over- 
faith,  the  supernatural,  is  the  ground  of  life's  highest 
political  forms. 

IN  MEXICO— MARRIAGE,  ETC. 

After  the  close  of  the  war  Major  Edwards  followed 
the  fortunes  of  his  old  leader  with  others  of  his  fellow- 
soldiers  into  Mexico,  where  .he  spent  two  years,  a  deeply 
interested  spectator  of  the  affairs  of  Maximilian's  Empire. 
With  this  amiable,  but  unfortunate  Prince,  and  with  his 
wife  the  "Poor  Carlotta,"  he  became  a  favorite,  and 
through  him  was  negotiated  and  obtained  the  grant 
which  enabled  Shelby,  and  perhaps  fifty  others,  to  estab- 
lish the  Cordova  Colony  of  Carlotta.  He  and  Governor 
Allen,  of  Louisiana,  a  man  of  beautiful  spirit  and  richly 
stored  mind,  established  a  newspaper,  The  Mexican  Times, 
devoted  to  the  restoration  of  an  era  of  peace,  prosperity 
and  good  government  for  this  sadly  distracted  people. 
Whilst  here,  the  material  of  one  of  his  books,  "An  Un- 
written Leaf  of  the  War/'  was  produced  and  gathered, 
wl|ich  appears  in  this  present  volume.  What  a  strangely 
romantic  period  these  two  years  must  have  been  to  the 
dreamy,  poetic  soldier  of  the  North.  The  rich,  tropical 
foliage,  the  skies  luminously  blue,  the  warm  airs,  the 
voluptuous  climate,  the  romantic  people  inheriting  the 
glorious  traditions  of  Old  Spain,  the  memories  of  the  Cid, 
songs  of  Calderon  and  Lope  de  Vega,  chanted  in  the  sweet 
the  Castilian  tongue  must  have  been  things  of  ceaseless 
charm  to  the  imaginative  temperament  so  strongly  marked, 
in  Major  Edwards.  It  was  a  period  of  romantic  adventure, 
and  from  time  to  time  he  has  related  to  me  singular 
episodes  that  occurred  during  his  association  with  Governor 
Allen3  but  brevity  denies  indulgence  to  the  reminiscent 
mood. 


!S  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

In  the  year  1867,  having  returned  from  Mexico,  Major 
Edwards  went  on  the  Republican  as  a  reporter,  then  under 
the  editorial  control  of  Col.  William  Hyde,  a  noble 
gentleman  and  an  able  writer,  whose  contributions  to  that 
great  paper  have  rarely  been  equaled  in  western  journalism. 

In  the  year  18G8,  in  connection  with  the  brilliant  and 
versatile  Col.  John  C.  Moore,  now  of  the  Pueblo  Dis- 
patch, he  inaugurated  the  Kansas  City  Times,  with  the 
iinancial  support  of  R.  B.  Drury  &  Co.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  he  was  married.  This  marriage  took  place  on 
March  28,  1871,  to  Mary  Virginia  Plattenburg,  of  Dover, 
Lafayette  County,  Missouri.  A  woman  scarce  less  bril- 
liant than  himself,  of  high  impulses,  poetic  sentiment  and 
of  an  uncommon  literary  faculty,  she  was  a  fit  companion 
for  this  molder  of  "  fiery  and  delectable  shapes."  They 
were  married  at  the  residence  of  Gen.  John  0.  Shelby, 
near  Aullville,  in  Lafayette  County.  This  marriage  took 
place  away  from  the  home  of  the  bride  because  of  an  inter- 
posed objection  on  the  part  of  the  parents,  grounded  solely 
upon  the  near  family  relationship  of  the  parties.  The 
fruit  of  this  marriage  is  two  boys  and  one  girl.  The  boys 
are  John  aged  seventeen  and  James  fourteen  years,  the  girl 
Laura  eight. 

THE  DUEL  WITH  COLONEL  FOSTER. 

Major  Edwards  remained  on  the  Times  until  1873,  two 
years  after  it  passed  into  its  present  management,  and 
greatly  aided  in  building  it  up  into  its  present  command- 
ing position  as  director  of  western  thought  and  enterprise. 
In  this  same  year,  he  went  upon  the  St.  Louis  Despatch, 
owned  and  controlled  by  Mr.  Stilson  Hutchins,  whom  he 
followed  into  the  St.  Louis  Times.  It  was  while  at  work 
on  the  Times  that  his  duel  with  Col.  Emory  S.  Foster 
took  place.  The  difficulty  grew  out  of  certain  questions 
incident  to  the  great  civil  struggle  whose  memories  were 
yet  fresh  in  the  minds  of  all,  and  its  passions  still  unallayed. 
These  matters  were  discussed  with  great  acerbity  of 
temper  and  sharpness  of  expression.  The  acrimony  engeri- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  19 

dered  by  a  long,  bitter  contest,  was  still  more  or  less  domi- 
nant in  the  minds  of  men  in  all  sections.  It  can  serve  no 
good  purpose  here  to  dwell  on  the  questions  themselves 
or  their  mode  of  treatment;  they  belong  to  the  dead  past, 
and  there  let  them  remain.  I  know  that  the  acrimony  so 
rife  at  the  time  of  this  occurrence  with  Major  Edwards,  in 
common  with  the  better  class  of  men  in  both  sections,  was 
a  thing  to  be  deplored  and  forgotten.  The  friends  and 
admirers  of  Major  Edwards  are  of  all  parties.  There  are 
no  more  tender  or  appreciative  tributes  to  his  memory 
than  those  written  by  the  men  in  blue.  Mrs.  Edwards 
informs  me  that  she  has  received  as  many  expressions  of 
sympathy  and  admiration  from  Federal  as  from  Confeder- 
ate soldiers.  The  perpetuation  of  the  rancor  of  the  war  is 
left  to  the  camp-follower  and  coward.  I  shall  here  enter 
on  no  defense  of  Major  Edwards'  ideas  on  the  duello. 
With  his  education,  and  sensitive  perception  of  the  worth 
of  personal  honor,  it  is  easily  accounted  for.  Omitting 
the  offensive  paragraphs  we  give  this  statement  from  a 
morning  paper  the  day  after  the  rencounter: 

BELOIT,  Wis.,  Sept.  4,  1875. 

A  duel  was  fought  at  five  o^clock  this  afternoon,  six 
miles  north  of  Rockford,  in  Winnebago  County,  Illinois, 
between  Maj.  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  St.  Louis  Times 
and  Despatch,  and  Col.  E.  S.  Foster,  of  the  St.  Louis 
Journal.  The  origin  of  the  affair  grew  out  of  the  recent 
invitation  to  Jefferson  Davis  to  address  the  Winnebago 
Fair.  ^  The  St.  Louis  Times  of  August  the  25th  contained 
an  article  written  by  Major  Edwards,  commenting  upon 
the  treatment  of  Mr.  Davis,  and  reflecting  upon  the  intol- 
erant spirit  manifested.  To  this  the  Journal  replied  that 
the  writer  of  the  Times  article  had  lied,  and  knew  he  lied, 
when  he  wrote  it. 

Major  Edwards  took  exception  to  this  and  demanded 
a  retraction  of  the  offensive  language.  Colonel  Foster, 
the  editor  of  the  Journal,  disavowed  any  personal  allusion 
to  Major  Edwards,  but  declined  to  retract  the  language. 
A  lengthy  correspondence  ensued,  Col.  H.  B.  Branch 
acting  as  the  friend  of  Major  Edwards,  and  Col.  W.  D.  W. 
Barnard  as  the  friend  of  Colonel  Foster,  the  result  of 
which  is  embodied  in  the  last  letters  of  the  principals, 
which  show  the  difference  between  them : 


20  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

ST.  Louis,  Mo.,  Aug.  30,  1875. 
6 '  Col.  EMORY  S.  FOSTER  : 

"Sir:  In  reply  to  your  letter  of  this  date  I  have  to  state 
that  your  reply  to  the  reasonable  request  I  made  of  you, 
to-wit,  to  withdraw  and  to  disavow  all  language  in  your 
editorial  of  the  25th  inst.,  personally  offensive  to  myself,  is 
evasive  and  not  responsive  to  my  request.  In  my  letter 
to  you  I  referred  solely  to  what  was  directly  personal  to 
myself,  without  inquiring  whether  my  editorial,  or  yours 
in  answer  to  it,  exceeded  the  usages  of  the  press  in  discuss- 
ing a  subject  generally  or  referring  to  bodies  of  persons. 
I  can  not  admit  your  right  to  introduce  these  questions 
into  this  controversy  which  refer  solely  to  your  allusion  to 
the  writer  of  the  Times  editorial. 

"  The  disclaimer  in  the  first  four  paragraphs  of  your 
letter  would  be  satisfactory  had  you  followed  it  up  by  a 
withdrawal  of  the  offensive  terms  of  your  editorial,  so  far 
as  they  referred  to  me  personally.  But  as  you  decline  to 
do  so  I  must,  therefore,  construe  your  letter  of  this  date, 
and  its  spirit,  as  a  refusal  on  your  part  to  do  me  an  act  of 
common  justice,  and  so  regarding  it,  I  deem  it  my  duty 
to  ask  of  you  that  satisfaction  which  one  gentleman  has  a 
right  to  ask  of  another. 

"  My  friend,  Col.  H.  B.  Branch,  who  will  deliver  this, 
is  authorized  to  arrange  with  any  friend  you  may  select, 
the  details  of  further  arrangements  connected  with  the 
subject.  Very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

J.  N.  EDWARDS/' 

ST.  Louis,  Aug.  31,  1875. 
"  Col.  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS: 

"  Sir:  Yours  of  the  30th  inst.  was  handed  to  my  friend, 
W.  D.  W.  Barnard,  Esq.,  at  11  o'clock  this  A.  M.,  by  your 
friend,  Col.  H.  B.  Branch,  and  is  now  before  me.  In 
reply,  I  have  to  state  that  I  emphatically  disclaimed  in 
my  note  of  yesterday  any  intention  of  referring  to  you,  or 
in  any  way  offering  to  you,  a  personal  offense  in  the  mat- 
ter in  which  you  have  raised  the  issue. 

"My  friend  Mr.  Barnard  will  have  charge  of  my  honor 
in  the  premises.  I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient 
servant,  EMORY  S.  FOSTER." 

It  being  found  impossible,  as  appears  from  the  above 
correspondence,  to  accomplish  a  reconciliation  between 
the  parties  by  a  withdrawal  of  the  offensive  language,  the 
matter  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  seconds,  Col.  H.  B. 
Branch,  on  the  part  of  Major  Edwards,  and  W.  D.  W. 
Barnard  on  the  part  of  Colonel  Foster. 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  21 

They  were  to  meet  on  the  4th  day  of  September,  1875, 
between  the  hours  of  6  and  7  A.  M.,  or  as  soon  thereafter 
as  the  parties  could  reach  the  grounds,  in  the  county  of 
Winnebago,  State  of  Illinois.  The  weapons,  Colt's  navy 
revolvers  calibre  38,  the  Distance  twenty  paces.  Each 
party  entitled  to  one  shot,  unless  both  demanded  a  second. 
The  firing  was  to  be  at  the  words,  thus:  "  Are  you  ready; 
one,  two,  three" — the  firing  to  occur  after  the  word 
"two"  and  not  after  the  word  "three."  The  seconds  were 
to  be  similarly  armed,  and  any  violation  of  the  rules  agreed 
upon  entitled  the  second  of  the  one  to  shoot  down  the 
offending  second  of  the  other. 

Upon  arriving  at  Rockford  both  parties  drove  to  the 
Holland  House  and  partook  of  dinner. 

About  3  o'clock. the  seconds  completed  their  arrange- 
ments. It  was  decided  to  drive  five  miles  north  on 
the  Beloit  road,  and  have  the  meeting  in.  some  secluded 
spot.  Both  principals  agreed,  and  Col.  Edwards'  party 
started  off  in  a  hack  at  half -past  three,  the  understanding 
being  for  them  to  await  the  other  party  for  half  an  hour 
after  arriving  as  far  out  as  designated.  If  the  challenged 
party  did  not  arrive  on  time  it  was  to  be  regarded  as  an 
evidence  of  cowardice. 

The  Foster  party  caught  up  with  the  other  party  just 
as  they  were  halting  at  an  estimated  distance  from  the 
city  of  five  miles. 

The  spot  where  the  halt  was  called  was  a  shaded  valley, 
with  a  winding  stream  called  Turtle  Creek,  running 
through  it.  The  seconds  held  another  consultation,  and, 
the  site  suiting  them,  they  went  in  search  of  a  place  suffi- 
ciently far  from  the  Beloit  road  to  be  safe  from  intrusion. 
After  an  absence  of  five  minutes  they  were  successful  in 
their  search,  and  on  their  return  the  whole  party  left  the 
carriages.  The  hackmen,  who  were  wondering  what  was 
in  the  wind,  but  had  not  the  enterprise  to  gratify  their 
curiosity,  were  told  to  wait  in  the  neighborhood  for  a  few 
minutes,  which  instructions  they  filled  to  the  very  letter. 
The  names  of  the  parties  who  went  on  the  field  were:  Col. 
John  N.  Edwards,  the  challenging  principal;  Col.  H.  B. 
Branch,  second;  Dr.  Montgomery,  surgeon;  Dr.  Munford, 
of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  friend;  Major  Foster,  principal; 
W.  D.  W.  Barnard,  second;  Dr.  P.  S.  O'Reilly,  surgeon, 
and  the  representative  of  the  Tribune,  friend. 

The  spot  selected  was  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  to  the 
west  of  the  road,  a  beautifully  shaded  valley  in  which 
horses  and  cattle  were  grazing.  The  seconds  took  up 
position  near  a  tree  and  commenced  to  examine  the 


22  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

weapons.      The  principals  were  a  few  yards  apart,  Foster 
reclining  on  a  bank,  coolly  smoking  a  cigar,  Edwards 
resting  with  his  back  against  a  tree  and  conversing  with 
Dr.  Munford,  with  whom  he  served  in  the  Confederate 
army.     The  surgeons  took  their  cases  of  instruments  to 
the  hill-side,  where  they  sat  watching  the  preparations  for 
the  encounter.     Some  time  was  occupied  in  the  examina- 
tion and  loading  of  the  pistols,  and  while  the  necessary 
part  of  the   work  was  in  progress,  the  principals  each 
divested  himself  of  his  watch  and  other  articles  which 
might  turn  off  a  bullet.     The  next  procedure  was  to 
measure  the  ground,  a  matter  which  was  gone  through 
with  business-like  dispatch  and  coolness.     Twenty  paces 
was  the  distance.     The  positions  were  north  and  south, 
and  were  marked  by  a  short  stake  driven  into  the  ground. 
Branches  of  trees  were  cleared  out  of  the  way  io  prevent 
injury  from  falls,  and  other  details  attended  to  which 
might  render  things  comfortable  for  the  parties  imme- 
diately interested.     The  next  important  step  was  to  toss 
up  for  position  and  the  call.     Branch,  Edward's  second, 
won  the  choice  of  position,  and  Barnard  the  call.     This 
fact  was  communicated  to  the  principals,  who  expressed 
themselves  satisfied  with  the  result.     The  principals  and 
seconds  then   walked  up  the  ground.      Edwards  asked 
Foster's  opinion  as  to  position,  but  the  latter  said  he  had 
no  choice.     They  both  received  their  weapons  from  the 
seconds  and  Edwards  chose  the  south  end  of  the  ground. 
Before  the  final  arrangements  were  completed,  the  friends 
were  requested  to  relieve  themselves  of  their  pistols,  a 
precaution  against  a  general  skirmish  should  either  party 
feel  aggrieved.     Dr.  Munford  was  the  only  one  who  had  a 
pistol  on  his  person,  and  he  at  once  placed  it  in  his  valise. 
The  conditions  of  the  fight  were  then  read.     Edwards 
requested  Barnard  to  articulate  the  words,  "Are  you  ready? 
one,  two,  three/'  in  a  distinct  manner,  so  as  to  prevent 
unpleasant  haste.     Both  men  at  this  point  displayed  mar- 
velous nerve,  Foster  smoking  his  cigar  in  an  unconcerned 
way.    Positions  were  then  taken  up,  the  the  seconds  shak- 
ing hands  with  their  principals,  and  receiving  instructions 
in  case  they  should  fall.     At  length  all  was  ready.     The 
seconds  had  pistols  in  their  hands  ready  to  revenge  any 
infringements  of  the  code.     There  was  an  ominous  pause. 
At  exactly  5  o'clock  the  men  faced  each  other  and  took  men- 
tal aim;  then  came  the  words,  "Are  you  ready?"  in  clear, 
distinct  tones:  "one,  two."   Before  the  word  three  the  duel- 
ists fired  almost  simultaneously.     The  surgeons  anxiously 
looked  each  to  his  man,  expecting  him  to  fall,  but  neither 


BICGHArillCAL  SKETCH.  23 

was  wotmdcd .  "  A  little  high ! "  exclaimed  Foster,  as  soon  as 
he  had  ni^u.  Edwards  demanded  another  fire,  in  an  excited 
tune.  Hissecuiid  asked  if  he  would  adhere  to  that  resolution. 
"Yes/' he  replied,  "  it  is  just  as  I  toldyou  before  we  cameon 
the  Held.  I  will  go  on  if  it  takes  a  thousand  fires;  "and  with 
this  remark  lie  sat  down  on  the  grass.  Foster  declined 
another  fire.  He  was  the  challenged  party,  and  felt  no 
bitterness  against  his  antagonist.  Therefore  he  was  not 
anxious  for  blood.  His  honor  had  been  sustained  as 
the  challenged  party.  Shots  had  been  exchanged,  and 
that  was  all  that  was  necessary.  Barnard  went  to  talk 
with  Edwards,  who  was  heard  to  say:  "I  have  admitted 
as  much  as  I  can  do — have  received  no  satisfaction  to  take 
with  me."  After  the  interchange  of  a  few  words,  Edwards 
concluded  to  make  the  thing  up.  He  approached  Foster 
and  shook  hands.  There  was  mutual  congratulation  all 
round,  and  it  was  interesting  to  see  the  brotherly  love  dis- 
played by  the  men,  who  two  minutes  before,  had  faced 
each  other  with  death  in  their  eyes.  The  genial  Bourbon 
was  produced,  and  the  agreeable  termination  to  the  affair 
toasted.  A  short  time  was  spent  on  the  grass  in  mutual 
explanation,  and  everything  was  forgotten  and  forgiven. 
The  parties  then  returned  to  their  hacks,  one  shaping 
toward  Beloit  and  the  other  to  Kockford,  which  place 
they  left  in  the  evening,  but  for  what  point  the  reporter 
failed  to  ascertain. 

Apprehending  a  possible  fatal  result,  Major  Edwards 
wrote  the  following  note  to  his  friend,  Dr.  Morrison  Mun- 
ford,  who  was  present.  It  was  written  at  the  Tremont 
House,  Chicago,  and  bears  no  date,  and  written  in  pencil 
on  a  leaf  torn  from  a  note-book  which  he  carried  in  his 
pocket.  The  note  needs  no  comment — it  carries  it's  own  : 

Dear  Morry:  A  little  farewell  I  want  to  speak  to  you. 
I  have  but  three  thoughts:  my  wife,  my  two  children. 
When  you  can  help  my  wife  in  her  pride — help  her.  It 
aint  much — only  it  is  so  much  to  me.  Your  friend, 

J.  N.  EDWAKDS. 

This  note  is  a  revelation  of  the  character  of  the  rela- 
tions between  these  two  men,  and  shows  how  implicity  he 
relied  upon  the  loyalty  and  steadfastness  of  Dr.  Munford's 
friendship — the  one  man  of  all  others  upon  whom  he  called 
in  his  supposed  extremity.  John  Edwards  knew  the  man 
he  calls  "  Dear  Morry  "  as  perhaps  no  other  man  did,  and 


24  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

lie  trusted  him.     And  now,  the  " little  farewell"  has  been 
spoken,  and  the  memory  of  a  brave  soul  is  left  to  men. 

JOURNALIST  AND  AUTHOR. 

After  his  withdrawal  from  the  St.  Louis  Times  he 
started  to  Santa  Fe,  to  engage  in  sheep-raising,  but  visiting 
Dover  to  make  his  farewells,  he  was  dissuaded  from  the 
undertaking,  and  remained  at  the  home  of  his  wif e's  father, 
Judge  J.  S.  Plattenburg,  and  wrote  the  "  Noted  Guer- 
rillas," a  wonderful  record  of  the  border  warfare.  Subse- 
quently he  went  to  Sedalia,  taking  editorial  charge  of  the 
Democrat.  Retiring  from  this  paper  he,  started  the  Des- 
patch, which  had  a  brief,  but  singularly  brilliant  career. 
He  was  then  called  to  the  editorial  management  of  the  St. 
Joseph  Gazette,  by  the  late  Col.  J.  N.  Burnes,  the  owner 
of  the  paper.  Again,  in  1887,  he  was  recalled  to  the  edit- 
orial chair  of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  which  place  he  held 
at  the  time  of  his  death.  One  needs  but  to  read  the 
numerous  press  tributes  to  know  how  exceedingly  brilliant 
his  editorial  career  has  been.  His  style,  bright  and  full  of 
poetic  forms,  was  forceful,  vigorous  and  convincing;  as 
flashing  and  as  keen  as  the  scimiter  of  Saladdin.  Many  of 
the  passages  in  this  book  bear  critical  comparison  with  the 
most  beautiful  passages  of  classic  English.  The  exuber- 
ance of  expression  and  prodigality  of  beautiful  words  in 
the  compositions  of  Major  Edwards  have  occasionally  led 
men  to  overlook  or  underestimate  the  more  solid  aspects  of 
his  mind.  His  historical  and  general  knowledge  was  very 
great;  his  familiarity  with  the  best  specimens  of  Classic 
English  in  both  prose  and  poetry  was  something  wonderful 
in  both  accuracy  and  comprehensiveness.  The  opportuni- 
ties of  a  student's  life  were  never  within  his  reach,  and  yet 
he  knew  vastly  more  of  books  than  most  men  who  had  been 
patient  toilers  over  their  pages  through  continuous  years. 
To  the  ordinary  mind  it  was  wholly  inexplicable,  how  or 
when  he  obtained  such  stores  of  rich  and  varied  knowl- 
edge. His  work  was  a  remarkable  blending  of  fact  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  25 

fancy,  of  cogent  reasoning  and  vivicf  poetic  expression. 
A  rare  combination  of  powers.  There  are  many  grad- 
grinds,  but  few  poets  to  clothe  the  hard  facts  of  life  in  the 
aureole  of  imperishable  beauty.  The  words  necessary  to 
describe  fitly  the  dauntless  courage,  the  greatness  of  soul, 
the  tenderness  surpassing  that  of  woman,  characterizing 
the  life  of  John  Edwards,  would,  to  those  who  little  knew 
4iim,  seem  fulsome  and  extravagant.  But  not  so  to  his 
friends  who  knew  him.  Some  of  the  virtues  of  Major  Ed- 
wards were  so  intense  in  their  expression  as  to  seem 
almost  weaknesses.  He  never  talked  of  himself.  There 
was  not  a  single  shred  of  the  braggart  in  his  nature.  He 
was  reticent  of  his  own  deeds  to  the  verge  of  eccentricity. 
He  seemed  to  be  wholly  unambitious,  free,  even  from  a 
suspicion  of  egotism.  A  strongly  marked  instance  of  this 
is  shown  in  the  fact  in  three  books  of  which  he  is  the 
real  hero,  not  once  is  illusion  made  to  himself.  I  fully 
agree  with  his  devoted  friend,  Dr.  Munford,  that  such  a 
repression  of  self,  under  such  circumstances,  is  simply 
without  a  parallel.  I  have  known  but  one  other  man  well, 
in  Missouri,  who  even  nearly  equaled  the  modesty,  the 
unselfish  self-forgetfulness  of  John  Edwards.  That  man 
was  the  prince  of  orators,  whose  soldiery  skill  wrote  his 
name  beside  that  of  Xenophon,  viz. :  Gen.  A.  W.  Doniphan. 
For  all  meretricious  methods,  for  every  form  of  pretense, 
for  merely  dramatic  effect,  John  Edwards  entertained  the 
harshest  scorn.  Sham  and  cant  that  sniveled,  stirred  his 
gentle  nature  into  holiest  and  hottest  wrath,  and  he  wove 
around  its  victim  the  network  of  scathing  lampoon  that 
burned  like  the  shirt  of  Nessus.  Trickery,  deceit  and 
cowardice  alone  made  him  pitiless.  That  he  was  unselfish 
is  clearly  manifested  in  this  fact,  that  his  great  influence* 
and  surely  no  single  man  in  all  the  State  had  so  large  a 
personal  following  whose  devotion  was  a  passion,  was 
never  employed  to  advance  his  own  financial  interest  or  to 
win  place  for  himself.  His  influence  was  always  for  his 
friends.  The  witnesses  are  everywhere,  in  every  walk  of 
life.  Men  in  high  places,  and  low  alike,  bear  testimony 
to  his  unselfish  work  for  every  comer.  He  showed  me  once 


26  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWAHIV. 

a  letter  from  a  poor  Irishman,  asking  his  assistance  to  pro- 
cure a  position  on  the  police  force  of  St.  Louis,  and  it  was 
granted  as  readily  as  to  a  seeker  of  the  highest  place  and 
power.  Of  his  carelessness  of  self-advancement  and  his 
unceasing  thought  of  other  people,  this  circumstance  is 
recalled.  He,  the  writer,  and  an  old  soldier,  grim  and 
gray,  in  stature  a  very  son  of  Anak,  stood  together.  These 
two  men  had  ridden  into  battle  as  joyously  as  the  groom 
seeks  his  bride.  And  now  in  the  days  of  peace,  the  griz- 
zled soldier  asks:  "John,  wouldn't  you  make  a  good  gov- 
ernor?" Promptly  the  answer  came:  "No,  but  I  know 
who  would/'  The  swart  grenadier  asks:  "Who?"  It  is 
not  needful  to  give  the  party  named,  beyond  this:  that  he 
represented  his  district  in  Congress,  and  wore  for  years 
stainlessly  the  judicial  ermine  of  his  State.  I  reconsider, 
and  give  the  name  of  Elijah  Norton,  the  able  jurist,  the 
distinguished  publicist  and  reproachless  gentleman. 


HIS  DEATH. 

Major  Edwards  was  ill  as  early  as  the  Wednesday  prior 
to  his  death,  but  his  demise  at  last  was  sudden  and  unex- 
pected by  his  friends.  The  immediate  cause  of  his  death 
was  inanition  of  the  cardiac  nerves.  In  the  morning  early 
he  read  part  of  a  late  paper.  No  one  witnessed  his  death, 
but  Thomas,  a  colored  servant,  and  his  little  daughter 
Laura,  aged  eight  years.  His  sons  were  at  St.  Mary's  Col- 
lege, Kansas,  and  Mrs.  Edwards,  worn  out  from  loss  of  rest, 
had  retired  to  another  room.  He  seemed  to  have  some 
premonition  that  the  end  was  near,  as  three  different  times 
he  asked  Thomas  to  call  Mrs.  Edwards.  The  boy  not 
realizing  the  Major's  condition,  said,  "no  let  Mrs. 
Edwards  rest."  The  child  was  playing  with  a  bubble-pipe, 
and  about  ten  minutes  before  death  he  blew  a  bubble,  and 
said  "Laura,  always  remember  that  papa  bought  you  that 
pipe "  evidently  from  this  he  knew  the  end  had  come. 
The  little  girl  stood  by  the  bedside  wiping  the  chill  death 
dew  from  her  father's  brow,  as  his  soul  took  its  mysterious 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  27 

I 

flight  to  tliat  ({ bourne  whence-  no  traveler  returns. " 
Mrs.  Edwards  and  Major  Bittinger  entered  the  room 
together,  just  as  life's  bound  was  reached.  Soon  it  was 
noised  abroad,  and  produced  a  profound  sensation  in  all 
parts  of  the  city.  Says  one: 

The  news  soon  spread  throughout  the  city,  and  there 
was  universal  expression  of  profound  sorrow.  Major 
Edwards  had  been  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  capital,  attend- 
ing all  the  sessions  of  the  Legislature  for  the  past  eighteen 
years,  and  all  Democratic  conventions  held  during  that 
time.  He  was  known  to  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the 
General  Assembly,  to  the  State  officials  and  to  the  people 
generally.  As  soon  as  his  death  was  announced,  groups  of 
men  could  be  seen  on  the  principal  streets,  discussing  the  sad 
event,  and  at  the  capitol  half  of  the  members  of  the  Sen- 
ate and  House  at  once  left  their  seats  and  gathered  in  the 
lobby  and  adjoining  rooms.  Republicans  and  Democrats 
alike  expressed  the  deepest  sorrow  for  his  sudden  and 
untimely  death,  and  the  highest  sympathy  for  his  bereaved 
family.  During  the  recess  at  noon  nothing  else  was 
talked  about  among  the  crowds  at  the  various  hotels  but 
the  death  of  the  brilliant  journalist. 

RESOLUTIONS  OF  RESPECT. 

At  the  afternoon  session  of  the  Senate,  Senator 
McGrath,  of  St.  Louis,  offered  the  following  resolution: 

WHEREAS,  The  Senate  of  Missouri,  with  profound  regret,  have 
learned  of  the  death  of  one  of  Missouri's  greatest  and  rnost  distin- 
guished citizens,  Major  John  N.  Edwards;  therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  That  in  respect  to  his  memory  the  Senate  now 
adjourn. 

After  a  few  appropriate  remarks  by  Senator  Moran,  of 
St.  Joseph,  the  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted  and 
the  Senate  adjourned.  In  the  House,  Hon.  Lysander  A. 
Thompson,  of  Macon,  offered  a  similar  resolution,  which 
was  unanimously  adopted  and  the  House  adjourned.  This 
evening  a  great  number  of  the  members  of  the  Senate 
and  House  visited  the  McCarty  House  to  take  a  last  look 
at  the  features  of  the  dead  journalist. 

In  addition  to  the  action  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  as  a  mark  of  respect  to  the  memory  of  the 
dead  journalist,  the  local  newspaper  men  and  newspaper 
correspondents  met  at  the  Tribune  office  this  afternoon, 


28  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

and  a  committee  consisting  of  Walter  M.  Monroe,  of  the 
Tipton  Times,  W.  A.  Edwards,  of  the  St.  Joseph  Gazette, 
and  C.  B.  Oldham,  of  the  Jefferson  City  Tribune,  were 
appointed  to  draft  suitable  memorial  resolutions  to  the 
memory  of  the  deceased  journalist.  The  committee 
reported  the  following: 

Maj.  John  S".  Edwards  was  born  in  Virginia  about 
fifty-one  years  ago.  His  parents  moved  to  Lexington, 
Mo.,  when  he  was  of  tender  age.  He  received  a  common 
school  education  and  afterward  learned  the  printing  trade 
in  an  office  at  Lexington.  At  the  commencement  of  the 
Civil  War  he  enlisted  in  the  Confederate  army  and  belonged 
to  Gen.  Jo.  O.  Shelby's  command.  He  was  promoted 
time  and  again  for  skill  and  personal  bravery,  and  won  his 
military  titles  in  the  most  honorable  manner  possible. 
He  was  engaged  in  more  than  fifty  battles  and  skirmishes, 
and  was  severely  wounded  on  more  than  one  occasion.  As 
the  war  drew  to  a  close  he  followed  Shelby  and  Price  to 
Texas,  and  about  the  time  peace  was  declared  a  small  frag- 
ment of  Shelby's  command,  known  as  the  "Iron  Brigade," 
sank  the  flag — the  blood-stained  flag  which  they  had  car- 
ried through  the  war — in  the  Rio  Grande  River,  crossed  the 
line  into  Mexico,  and  for  thirteen  months  served  in  the 
French  army.  Later,  Major  Edwards  returned  to  Missouri 
and  published  several  books,  one  relating  to  the  border 
warfare  in  Missouri,  Texas  and  Arkansas,  another  entitled 
((  Shelby  and  his  Men."  He  soon  after  engaged  in  news- 
paper editorial  work,  first  in  St.  Louis,  next  in  Sedalia, 
then  in  St.  Joseph  and  Kansas  City,  respectively.  He  was 
for  a  time  editor  of  the  Despatch  and  Times  in  St.  Louis, 
edited  the  Sedalia  Democrat  and  Despatch,  later  the  St. 
Joseph  Gazette,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  was  editor  of 
the  Kansas  City  Times.  No  writer  in  the  West  was  better 
known  than  Major  Edwards.  He  followed  no  man. 
Every  idea  he  advanced  was  original,  and  every  thought  he 
expressed  in  print  was  copied  far  and  wide.  He  had  no 
superior  in  the  newspaper  field  and  but  few  peers.  He 
was  honest  and  fearless,  and  never  published  a  line  in  pub- 
lic prints  which  he  did  not  believe  to  be  the  truth,  and  for 
which  he  would  not  answer  personally  at  all  times.  We, 
representatives  of  the  western  press,  recognize  in  his 
death  an  irreparable  loss.  He  was  brave  and  generous  in 
war,  and  fearless  and  honest  in  civil  life,  and  liberal  to  a 
fault — an  affectionate  husband  and  a  kind  father.  We 
believe  that  his  death  has  left  a  vacancy  in  Missouri  jour- 
nalism that  can  never  be  filled.  His  death  is  a  calamity 
to  the  press  of  the  State.  As  an  original  writer  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  29 

conscientious  literary  man,  he  never  had  a  superior.  He 
was  brave  and  magnanimous  in  health,  and  fearless  and 
resigned  when  the  final  summons  came.  Resolutions  can 
not  express  our  opinion  of  his  ability  and  fearlessness.  He 
lived  the  life  of  a  patriotic  American,  and  died  the  death  of 
a  brave,  conscientious  newspaper  man. 

Augustine  Gallagher,  Kansas  City  Journal,  president. 

W.  A.  Edwards,  St.  Joseph  Gazette,  secretary. 

C.  B.  Oldham,  Tribune,  chairman  committee. 

Walt  M.  Monroe,  Tipton  Times. 

Walter  Sander,  WestlicJie  Post. 

John  Meagher,  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

A.  C.  Lemmon,  Post-Despatch. 

W.  M.  Smith,  St.  Louis  Republic. 

W.  N.  Graham,  Sedalia  Gazette. 

J.  H.  Edwards,   Tribune. 

W.  A.  Curry,  Kansas  City  Times. 

W.  J.  Cambliss,  Higginsville  Advance. 

John  W.  Jacks,  Montgomery  Standard. 

A.  A.  Lesueur,  Lexington  Intelligencer. 

Walter  Williams,  Boonville  Advertiser. 

Immediately  on  the  announcement  of  Major  Edwards' 
death,  Col.  A.  C.  Dawes  telegraphed  General  Manager 
Clark  of  the  Missouri  Pacific,  and  received  a  reply  that  he 
would  place  his  special  car  at  his  disposal  to  convey  the 
remains  of  the  dead  journalist  and  his  family  to  Dover, 
Lafayette  County,  where  it  had  been  decided  he  should 
be  buried.  The  pall-bearers  are:  ex-Governor  Charles  P. 
Johnson,  Dr.  Morrison  Munford,  Maj.  J.  L.  Bittinger, 
Darwin  W.  Marmaduke,  J.  F.  Merryman  and  Col. 
Thomas  P.  Hoy. 

Captain  Lesueur,  Secretary  of  State,  gives  the  follow- 
ing account  of  the  journey  from  Jefferson  City  to  Dover: 


THE  FUNERAL  JOURNEY. 

The  death  of  Maj  John  N.  Edwards,  from  heart  dis- 
ease, took  place  at  the  McCarty  House,  in  Jefferson  City, 
at  9:40  A.  M.,  Saturday,  May  4th.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that  it  created  a  profound  sensation  throughout  the 
city.  No  man  in  Missouri  was  so  well  known  as  he  to  its 
public  men.  .  In  Jefferson  City  he  was  known  by  every- 


30  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

body,  and  his  friends  were  numbered  by  the  limit  of  his 
acquaintance.  Republicans  as  well  as  Democrats  were  his 
warm  admirers,  and  the  humblest  negro  that  knew  him 
loved  him. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  funeral  that  has  occurred  at 
Dover  for  many  years  has  created  a  more  profound  impres- 
sion upon  the  public  mind  than  did  that  of  Major  Ed- 
wards. There  he  learned  to  know  his  beloved  commander, 
Gen.  Joseph  0.  Shelby,  and  many  of  the  brave  and 
daring  soldier  boys  whose  firmness  in  battle  and  endur- 
ance on  the  march  gained  for  the  old  brigade  that 
renown  which  he  afterward  immortalized  in  most  poetic 
prose.  There,  too,  he  wooed  and  won  his  bride,  a  fair, 
gray-eyed  Southern  lassie,  as  full  of  impulse  and  romance 
as  himself,  a  woman  of  ideals  and  poesy  perhaps,  but  a 
brave  and  true-hearted  woman  who  stood  by  him  always, 
in  weal  and  in  woe,  in  joy  and  affliction,  and  was  ever  his 
ministering  angel,  his  comfort  and  his  solace.  0,  yes, 
Dover  had  many  ties  upon  the  heart  of  Major  Edwards, 
and  to  the  good  people  of  the  vicinity,  a  steady,  God-fear- 
ing people,  but  a  people  of  leisure,  who  read  and  preserve 
a  touch  of  the  romance  of  the  days  of  Cceur  de  Lion,  of 
Bruce  and  of  McGregor,  John  Ed  wards  was  the  embodiment 
of  all  that  was  chivalric  and  poetic.  They  ever  followed 
from  journal  to  journal  his  gifted  pen,  and  he  was  nearer 
and  dearer  to  them  than  he  was  to  many  with  whom  he 
came  in  daily  contact  outiin  the  busy,  active  world.  And 
they  were  there  to  put  all  that  was  mortal  of  him  away  in 
its  last  resting  place  with  their  own  loving  hands.  Their 
wives  and  daughters  were  there,  too,  to  add  their  tears  to 
those  of  the  stricken  wife  and  children.  As  the  numerous 
assemblage  encircled  the  grave,  grief  and  sorrow  written 
upon  every  face,  the  scene  was  one  to  immortalize  the  painter 
who  could  have  seized  it  and  put  it  on  canvas.  There  was 
the  evidence  of  an  unusual  depth  of  feeling  and  regret 
even  for  such  an  occasion. 

From  the  moment  of  his  death  until  his  remains  were 
taken  from  the  train,  there  was  a  constant  stream  of  sad 
and  sorrowing  friends  passing  in  and  out  of  the  corridor, 
all  intent  upon  hearing  the  particulars  of  his  dying  hours, 
upon  looking  just  once  more  at  his  familiar  features,  upon 
expressing  grief  at  his  loss  and  of  sympathy  with  his  be- 
reaved wife  and  children.  At  12:30  on  Sunday  the  funeral 
procession  formed  at  the  hotel  to  go  to  the  depot, 
where  the  train  was  waiting.  First,  came  a  long  line  of 
gentlemen  on  foot,  led  by  Governor  Francis,  and  com- 
posed of  senators,  members  of  the  house  of  representa- 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  31 

tives,  and  many  others.  By  the  side  of  the  hearse  were 
the  pall-bearers — Dr.  Morrison  Munford,  Col.  D.  W.  Mar- 
maduke,  Hon.  J.  Frank  Merriman,  Maj.  John  L.  Bit- 
tinger,  Col.  T.  P.  Hoy  and  Capt.  A.  A.  Lesueur ;  after 
them  came  the  family  and  other  friends  in  carriages.  At 
Tipton  a  special  train  furnished  by  the  courtesy  of  S.  H. 
Clark,  Esq.,  at  the  request  of  Col.  A.  C.  Dawes,  awaited 
the  funeral  party,  which  was  composed  of  Mrs.  Edwards, 
Miss  Ella  McCarty,  her  near  friend,  all  of  the  pall- 
bearers (except  Col.  Marmaduke),  Rev.  Peter  Trone,  and 
Messrs.  George  and  Walter  Plattenburg.  At  Boonville 
they  were  joined  by  Hon.  Thomas  Cranmer,  and  at  Mar- 
shall by  Elder  George  Plattenburg  and  Mr.  Yerbey.  The 
train  reached  the  Dover  depot  at  about  6:30  p.  M.,  where 
it  was  met  by  a  number  of  the  citizens  of  the  place,  and 
by  the  following  named  gentlemen,  who  acted  as  actual 
pall-bearers  :  John  Allen  Harwood,  E.  S.  Van  Anglen, 
Dr.  E.  R.  Meng,  R.  T.  Koontz,  James  F.Winn  and  George 
B.  Gordon.  The  casket  was  deposited  at  the  Plattenburg 
mansion,  Mrs.  Edwards7  girlhood  home,  until  10  o'clock 
the  next  morning,  when  the  burial  took  place  in  the  vil- 
lage cemetery.  The  whole  country-side  had  turned  out. 

The  train  arrived  as  above,  at  Dover,  6:40  p.  M.  Sun- 
day, May  5th.  The  following  day,  May  6th,  he  was  borne 
to  his  last  resting  pl'ace.  The  burial  is  thus  described  by 
the  Kansas  City  Times,  the  paper  he  started,  and  at  whose 
helm  he  gallantly  and  dauntlessly  stood  through  many  a 
storm: 

THE  LAST  SLEEP. 

[Special  to  the  Kansas  City  Times.'] 

HIGGIKSVILLE,  Mo.,  May  6th. — In  the  old  cemetery, 
just  at  the  outskirts  of  the  little  town  of  Dover,  ten  miles 
from  here,  the  body  of  John  N.  Edwards  was  buried  this 
morning.  It  is  a  quiet,  secluded  spot,  where  the  rumble 
of  wagon  wheels  in  the  road  near  by  are  the  only  sounds, 
save  the  singing  of  birds,  heard  from  one  year's  end  to 
the  other — just  the  place  where  one  with  Major  Edwards' 
love  of  nature  and  the  beautiful  would  desire  to  lie  in  his 
last  long  sleep.  And  it  was  his  wish,  frequently  expressed , 
that  he  should  be  buried  there.  It  is  within  easy  view  from 
the  old  Plattenburg  homestead,  where  his  wife  spent  her 
girlhood  and  he  wooed  and  won  her,  and  from  which  hi  3 
body  was  carried  to  its  last  resting  place  this  moring.  From 


32  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

the  windows  the  tombstones  which  mark  the  graves  of  the 
former  residents  of  Dover  are  plainly  visible.  The  whole 
scene  is  a  pretty  rural  one,  the  scattering  houses  of  Dover 
giving  it  just  enough  of  an  urban  aspect  to  soften  its  out- 
lines without  destroying  its  primitive  beauty.  It  was  no 
wonder  that  one  with  the  poetic  temperament  and  chival- 
rous ideals  of  Major  Edwards  should  choose  the  old  Dover 
cemetery  as  his  burial  place,  even  if  his  early  days  had  not 
endeared  it  to  him. 

The  special  train — which  was  kindly  furnished  by  the 
Missouri  Pacific — bearing  the  body,  the  wife  and  little 
daughter  of  Major  Edwards,  the  pall-bearers  and  friends, 
arrived  at  Dover  from  Jefferson  City,  Sunday  night  at  6:40. 
The  pall-bearers  were  Maj.  John  L.  Bittinger  of  St. 
Joseph;  Dr.  Morrison  Munford,  Hon.  J.  F.  Merryman,  Rev. 
Peter  Trone  of  Clinton;  Col.  T.  P.  Hoy  and  Secretary  of 
State  A.  A.  Lesueur.  Miss  Ella  McCarty  of  Jefferson  City; 
Messrs.  George  and  Walter  Plattenburg  of  Kansas  City; 
brothers  of  Sirs.  Edwards,  and  Mr.  Thomas  Cranmer, 
sheriff  of  Cooper  County,  were  among  the  party  that  came 
from  Jefferson  City. 

The  body  was  at  once  taken  from  the  station  to  the 
residence  of  Mrs.  L.  C.  Plattenburg,  Mrs.  Edward's 
mother. 

THE  LAST  SAD  LOOK. 

At  8:30  this  morning  the  casket  was  opened,  and  the 
citizens  of  Dover  and  the  people  from  the  country  for 
miles  around,  filed  in  to  take  a  last  look  at  the  face  which 
was  loved  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  Lafayette 
County,  where  he  passed  his  early  life,  and  from  which  ho 
went  to  make  a  name  that  was  honored  and  loved  where- 
ever  it  was  known.  Moist  eyes  of  strong  men  gave  evi- 
dence of  the  sincere  affection  with  which  the  dead  soldier 
and  journalist  had  been  regarded.  Many  of  the  men  who 
passed  had  seen  him  go  out  to  battle  in  the  pride  of  his 
youthful  strength,  and  they  said  that  after  many  years 
the  face  was  not  changed  as  much  as  might  have  been 
expected.  The  features  were  life-like  and  the  expression 
peaceful.  "He  looks  as  if  he  were  sleeping,"  many 
remarked. 

The  greater  part  of  the  five  or  six  hundred  people  who 
viewed  the  corpse  came  from  Lexington,  Higginsville,  Cor- 
der  and  the  neighboring  towns.  There  had  been  a  mis- 
understanding as  to  the  time  the  funeral  would  take  place, 
and  many  persons  from  Higginsville,  Corder  and  other 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  33 

places  had  driven  over  Sunday.  This  and  the  comparative 
inaccessibility  of  Dover  kept  many  persons  away  who  had 
desired  to  be  present.  Nevertheless  the  little  town  could 
not  have  accommodated  many  more  strangers. 

There  were  no  services  at  the  house.  At  10  o'clock 
the  casket  was  closed.  In  addition  to  the  pall-bearers 
who  had  accompanied  the  body  from  Jefferson  Cit}7,  Mr. 
John  Allen  Harwood,  E.  S.  Van  Anglen,  E.  K.  Meng, 
li.  L  Koontz,  James  F.  Winn,  and  George  B.  Gordon  of 
Dover,  had  been  selected.  They  carried  the  casket  to  the 
hearse,  which  had  been  sent  from  Lexington.  Besides 
Mrs.  Ed  wards -And  her  two  sons  and  daughter,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  family  who  were  present  were  J.  Q.  Platten- 
burg, H.  W.  Plattenburg,  H.  Y.  Plattenburg,  George 
Plattenburg,  and  W.  L.  Plattenburg,  brothers  of  Mrs. 
Edwards  ;  Mrs.  L.  C.  Plattenburg,  her  mother  and  Miss 
Eala  Plattenburg,  her  sister.  Mrs.  Thomas  Yerby,  with 
whom  Major  Edwards  lived  when  he  was  a  boy,  and  learned 
to  set  type,  also  followed  the  body  to  the  grave.  Mr.  Wiley 
O.  Cox,  of  Kansas  City,  was  in  one  of  the  carriages.  The 
procession  was  a  long  one,  but  the  distance  from  the  house 
to  the  cemetery  was^hort. 


THE  PREACHER'S  TRIBUTE. 


The  services  at  the  grave  were  simple,  as  Major 
Edwards  had  wished  them  to  be.  They  were  conducted 
by  Rev.  George  Plattenburg,  a  cousin  of  Mrs  Edwards. 
He  spoke  feelingly  and  every  word  was  listened  to  intently. 
His  address  was  substantially  as  follows  : 

Twenty-eight  years  ago,  when  General  Shelby  was  the 
captain  of  a  single  company,  composed  largely  of  the 
flower  of  the  youth  of  this  immediate  vicinity,  Major 
Edwards  came  to  my  home  in  Little  Rock,  Arkansas, 
accompanied  by  Yandell  Blackwell,  a  soldier  and  gentle- 
man from  spur  to  plume.  From  that  day  to  this  my 
intercourse  with  Major  Edwards  has  been  of  a  most  inti- 
mate character.  I  have  never  met  a  more  rarely  gifted  or 
nobler  man.  His  knowledge  of  men  and  books  was  sim- 
ply wonderful.  When  and  how  he  gained  this  great  and 
varied  knowledge  was  to  me,  a  close  student  of  books  for 
more  than  forty  years,  still  more  wonderful,  engaged  as  he 
was  continuously  in  great  active  interests,  and  involved  in 
the  stress  of  vast  political  contests.  A  great  journal  of 
yesterday  morning  spoke  of  him  as  only  a  poet.  If  by  this 


34  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

was  meant  that  he  was  only  a  maker  of  rhythmic  phrases, 
or  the  f  ramer  of  melodious  sentences,  the  statement  WHS 
so-arcely  just.  His  was  the  wonderful  and  acute  insight  of 
the  true  poetic  faculty  into  the  great  problems  of  human 
life  and  action  and  destiny  —  the  faculty  that  intuitively 
penetrates  the  reason  of  things.  In  this  sense  he  was  a 
poet.  These  things  he  clothed  in  the  poet's  glowing  words, 
in  striking  and  ofttirnes  surprisingly  beautiful  forms  of 
speech.  In  his  best  moods  he  threw  oif  passages  of  rare 
charm,  not  surpassed,  if  equaled,  anywhere  in  the  vast 
field  of  American  journalism. 

It  was  not  the  splendor  of  his  intellect,  the  marvelous 
grace  of  his  diction,  or  the  unoqualed  mastery  of  scintil- 
lant  and  forceful  words,  that  bound  John  Edwards  to  his 
friends,  but  his  greatness  of  heart,  his  sweet,  gentle  and 
unselfish  nature.  In  a  long  intercourse  with  men  of  all 
ranks  and  conditions,  professions  and  trades,  I  have  met 
no  man  so  free  from  all  ignoble  and  selfish  impulses.  His 
wide  influence  was  never  used  for  his  own  gain  or  personal 
advancement,  but  always  for  that  of  others.  Those  debtor 
to  John  Edwards  in  this  regard  may  be  counted  by  hun- 
dreds. A  journalist,  and  now  a  State  official  said  to  me 
years  ago,"  he  asks  for  himself,  never;  for  others,  always/' 
A  great,  loyal,  loving  and  unselfish  heart  was  his.  God 
rarely  makes  a  man  like  him.  Fitly  might  the  Recording 
Angel  write  of  him,  Abou  Ben  Adhem's  prayer,  "  write 
me  as  one  that  loves  his  fellow  men/' 

Whatever  the  infirmities  of  gentle  and  gifted  John 
Edwards,  there  was  in  him  a  strong  religious  sentiment. 
I  do  not  mean  religious  as  defined  by  books,  or  as  formulated 
in  creeds,  but  in  the  acceptance  and  reverent  holding  of 
those  great  truths  that  lie  behind  all  formulated  systems 
and  of  which  organized  religions  are  the  product.  That 
Infinite  Being,  forming  the  primary  religious  concept  of 
primitive  peoples,  the  Jehovah  of  the  Hebrew  records,  the 
"Heaven-Father  "  of  the  Vedic  hymns,  which  Max  Mul- 
ler  says  formed  humanity's  first  poem  and  first  artic- 
ulate prayer,  and  as  exalted  by  the  great  Master  in  that 
universal  prayer  :  "Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven/'  he 
recognized  and  looked  up  to  with  the  trust  of  a  child.  In 
addition  to  this  as  a  necessary  sequence,  he  accepted  unfal- 
teringly the  doctrine  of  the  soul's  immortality  as  the  sole 
basis  of  a  hope  that  can  gladden  and  sweeten  the  labor  of 
stricken  men.  Once  as  I  sat  by  his  bedside  at  the  McCarty 
House,  late  in  the  night,  turning  suddenly  to  me  after  a 
lull  in  our  talk,  he  asked :  "Do  you  ever  go  down  to  the 
great  river  that  flows  near  your  home,  and  sitting  beneath 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH.  35 

the  midnight  stars  listen  to  the  solemn  swish  of  the  on- 
sweepirig  mysterious  stream,  and  think  of  the  vast  things 
that  lie  beyond  the  river  and  beyond  the  stars?"  From  this 
we  drifted  into  a  discussion  of  the  largest  problems  with 
which  the  soul  has  to  do  ;  the  questions  of  action  and 
destiny.  Then,  more  than  ever  before 'or  after,  John 
Edwards  revealed  to  me  the  secrets  of  his  immost  life.  He 
felt  as  the  Laureate  sings: 

My  own  dim-life  should  teach  me  this, 

That  life  shall  live  forever  more, 

Else  earth  is  darkness  at  the  core, 
And  dusrand  ashes  all  that  is. 

This  round  of  green,  this  orb  of  flame, 

Fantastic  beauty,  such  as  lurks 

In  some  wild  poet  as  he  works 
Without  a  conscience  or  an  aim. 

To-day,  from  every  part  of  the  great  Southwest,  the 
scarred  veterans  of  the  "lost  cause,"  will  turn  with  tearful 
eyes  to  this  village  graveyard,  where  we  reverently  and 
lovingly  lay  their  old  companion  in  arms,  so  brilliant  in 
intellect,  so  noble  in  heart,  so  gentle  and  generous,  so 
pure  and  chivalrous  in  every  impulse.  May  the  smile  of 
God  rest  upon  this  village  grave  as  a  perpetual  benedic- 
tion. 

* 
*    * 

In  the  quiet,  quaint  little  village  of  Dover,  whose 
people  removed,  "  Far  from  the  maddening  crowd's  ignoble 
strife,"  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  their  way,  on  a  gentle 
declivity  leaning  to  the  kiss  of  southern  suns,  a  sheltered, 
sequestered  spot,  fit  place  of  rest  after  life's  "  fitful  fever," 
lies  the  village  graveyard.  Here: 

"  The  sacred  calm  that  reigns  around, 
Bids  every  fierce  tumultuous  passion  cease; 
In  still  small  accents  whispering  from  the  ground 
A  grateful  earnest  of  eternal  peace." 

In  this  retired  spot  reverent  hands  laid  all  that  remained 
of  gifted  John  Edwards.  The  voice,  that  oft  within  the 
"  battle's  red  rim,"  shouted,  ' '  Steady,  Men,"  is  hushed. 
The  eye  that  flashed  with  steely  glitter,  as  it  saw  the  set- 
ting and  onset  of  squadrons,  but  so  gently  limpid  in  repose, 
is  closed  forever.  The  blare  of  bugles,  the  cannon's  roar, 
the  rush  of  armed  fleet  and  the  voice  of  love  are  now  alike 


36  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

unheard.  The  fearless  soldier,  the  brilliant  journalist, 
the  loyal  friend,  the  dreamer  of  sweet  dreams,  by  his  own 
request  lies  quietly  among  the  village  dead,  apart  from  the 
stress  of  enterprise  and  the  coldness  of  greed.  Above  the 
narrow,  dreamless  abode  of  the  great  heart  now  pulseless, 
the  leaves  shimmer  in  soft  light,  the  fragrance  of  flowers 
lingers  above  the  turf  lovingly,  and  the  sweet  May  stars 
distill  their  dews  to  keep  the  grasses  green.  In  his  owi| 
words,  written  of  "Prince"  John  B.  Magruder's  lon& 
Texas  grave,  we  may  say,  "  If  roses  are  the  tear  drops  of 
angels  as  the  beautiful  Arab  belief  puts  forth  in  poetry, 
then  is  this  lowly  mound  a  hallowed  spot,  and  needs  not 
the  sculptured  stone,  the  fretted  column  and  the  obelisk. " 
Few  men  have  been  so  admired,  or  so  mourned.  At  his 
grave,  old,  scarred  soldiers,  unused  to  tears  wept  like  girls./ 
Friends,  kindred,  his  children  grieved,  but  a  larger  grief 
was  hers,  whom  he  wooed  and  won  with  knightly  devotion 
in  the  summer  days  long  ago.  She,  sitting  within  the 
mysterious  shadow  of  the  "  Spheral  Change,  by  men  called 
death,"  can  only  sing  with  Dante  Kossetti,  in  mournful 
questioning: 

"  O  nearest,  furthest!    Can  there  be 
At  length  some  hard-earned,  heart-won  home, 
Where  exile  changed  for  sanctuary. 
Our  lot  may  fill  indeed  its  sum, 
And  you  may  wait  and  I  may  come." 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP 

BY  MORRISON  MUNFORD. 


IN  September,  1868, 1  came  over  from  Seneca,  Kansas, 
where  I  had  been  sojourning  on  business,f  or  a  visit  to  Kansas 
City,  the  then  questionable  metropolis  of  the  Missouri 
Valley.  I  stopped  at  the  Sheridan  Hotel,  the  first-class 
hostelry  of  the  town.  After  supper  I  went  by  devious 
ways  without  sidewalks  to  the  Times  office.  I  was  in  search  of 
Col.  John  C.  Moore,  a  cousin,  and  the  only  man  I  knew 
within  the  city  limits.  I  found  him  in  his  den,  the  auto- 
cratic editor  of  the  Times,  on  the  second  story  of  what  is. 
now  813  Main  street,  opposite  the  present  Times  office. 
He  welcomed  me  as  one  disfranchised  Confederate  would 
another  in  those  days,  and  during  the  evening  introduced 
me  to  some  of  his  associates  and  visitors.  Among  the  latter 
I  recollect  Major  Wholegan,  Colonel  Crafton  and  Colonel 
Branch.  Later  on  he  made  me  acquainted  with  a  man 
apparently  of  about  my  own  age,  who  came  in  with  some 
matter  which  he  submitted,  and  who  was  mentioned  to  me  as 
Major  Edwards,  of  Shelby's  command,  and  associate  editor 
of  the  Times.  It  happened  that  his  work  was  about  over 
for  the  night,  and  an  hour's  conversation  was  the  result  of 
our  introduction.  That  hour's  talk  with  John  Edwards 
that  night  made  an  indelible  impression  upon  my  mind. 
It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Seymour  and  Blair  campaign, 
and  politics  was  at  fever  heat.  I  had  come  down  from 
intolerant  Kansas,  where  an  ex-Confederate  soldier  barely 
had  the  right  of  existence.  I  wanted  consolation  and 
comfort,  and  I  got  both  from  John  Edwards  that  Septem- 
ber night  in  1868. 

This  was  our  first  acquaintance,  which  was  renewed, 
37 


38  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

from  time  to  time,  until  my  removal  to  Kansas  City  in 
May,  1869,  soon  after  which  we  became  room-mates,  and 
so  continued  until  we  sought  other  partners  for  life. 

The  memory  of  my  bachelor  days  twenty  years  ago, 
with  John  Edwards  as  my  chum,  lingers  as  a  sweet 
unction.  I  was  then  in  a  business  that  required  no  night 
work,  but  nearly  every  night  would  find  me  seeking  the 
Times  office,  and  together,  after  the  paper  had  gone  to 
press,  we  would  wander  homeward  to  our  bachelor  quarters. 
The  communings  we  then  had,  the  confidences  we 
mutually  bestowed,  the  castles  in  the  air  we  then  built 
are  all,  all  a  glorious  recollection.  The  friendship  then 
established  between  us  continued  unbroken  to  the  day  of 
his  death. 

In  1871  I  became  manager  of  the  Times,  with  John  N. 
Edwards  as  editor.  This  relation  lasted  for  some  three 
years,  and  never  was  one  more  congenial  and  satisfactory. 
Then,  against  my  positive  judgment  and  advice  he  went 
to  St  Louis  on  the  Times  with  Stilson  Hutchins,  who 
aspired  to  be  the  dictator  of  Missouri  politics.  The 
golden  promises  held  out  to  John  Edwards  turned  to 
worse  than  ashes,  and  his  consecutive  drifting  from  point 
to  point  in  new  ventures  in  Missouri  journalism  was  the 
consequence. 

During  these  many  years  I  had  personally,  and  by 
letters,  advised  and  entreated  him  to  return  to  his  first 
love,  telling  him  there  was  always  a  place  for  him  on  the 
Times  staff.  In  the  fall  of  1886  he  wrote  me  from  St. 
Joseph  that  he  would  come,  and  in  January,  1887,  he  came. 
His  contributions  since  then  to  the  Times  need  no  men- 
tion at  my  hands.  Treating  every  topic,  political,  social, 
scientific,  historical,  literary,  whatever  he  touched  bore 
evidence  of  his  splendid  genius.  What  he  did  in  these 
last  years  of  his  life  as  it  appears  on  the  surface—  in  his 
writings — is  known  to  the  world,  but  how  much  of  effort 
and  endeavor,  of  strife  and  contention  he  had  to  endure, 
and  the  fierce  contest  he  waged  against  his  only  enemy 
day  and  night,  no  one  can  know,  except  those  who 
knew  him  as  I  intimately  knew  him  during  these  later 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  39 

years,  and  who  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  efforts  made  to 
disenthrall  him.  And  I  have  thought  that  perhaps  I 
could  do  no  more  just,  kind  or  brotherly  act  to  his 
memory  than  to  give  to  the  world  in  his  own  words — 
extracts  from  his  letters  to  me — an  insight  into  this  phase 
of  his  character.  They  show,  it  is  true,  his  weakness  and 
irresolution  but  they  also  show  his  noble  impulses  and  his 
heroic  struggles  to  overthrow  his  enemy — "the  monster 
of  drink." 

Soon  after  his  arrival  he  wrote  me  as  follows  : 

KANSAS  CITY,  January  26,  1887. 

I  have  agreed  upon  a  house,  and  I  want  to  bring  what 
I  have  into  it  instantly.  I  want  to  get  to  work  and  buckle 
down  to  business  instantly.  Work  now  is  my  salvation.  I 
do  not  care  how  hard  it  is,  but  I  want  not  only  to  paralyze 
the  tiger  but  also  to  kill  him. 

What  I  want  to  do  is  for  you  to  put  me  upon  my  honor, 
and  deal  with  me  in  a  business  way.  Our  personal  friend- 
ship is  another  matter. 

You  can  trust  me  in  all  the  future  about  drinking. 
My  honor  is  pledged  to  your  nobleness  of  character. 

The  return  of  Major  Edwards  to  Kansas  City  to  take  a 
permanent  position  on  the  Times  was  soon  made  the 
occasion  for  a  matter  of  social  rejoicing  and  convivialities, 
by  unwise  and  indiscreet  " friends,"  the  result  of  which 
left  him  in  a  deplorable  condition,  from  which  he 
barely  escaped  with  life,  and  his  enemy  soon  seemed  to 
have  a  spell  upon  him  that  no  ordinary  methods  could 
break.  After  trying  in  vain  the  unavailing  efforts  of  the 
good  sisters  of  the  ho'spital,  and  the  influences  and 
restraints  of  my  own  house  for  several  months,  I  concluded, 
with  the  written  sanction  of  his  wife,  to  try  a  more  heroic 
remedy,  to  put  him  under  treatment  of  Dr.  Keeley  and 
his  celebrated  Gold  Cure,  at  Dwight,  111.  The  Major  had 
always  expressed  the  utmost  abhorrence  against  going  to 
an  inebriate  asylum,  or  even  a  sanitarium  where  there  was 
physical  restraint,  but  as  this  was  nothing  of  the  kind  I 
thought  it  the  best  place  I  knew  of  for  the  experiment, 
both  from  hearsay  and  also  from  a  letter  of  inquiry  to 
which  the  following  was  a  reply: 


40  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

DWIGHT,  March  17,  1887. 

Dear  Sir:  I  do  not  know  that  I  can  tell  you  anything 
about  our  cure  for  the  liquor  habit  that  you  do  not  know, 
but  for  the  benefit  of  the  gentleman,  I  will  say,  that  a 
patient  here  is  put  upon  our  Gold-graded  treatment,  a 
plan  much  after  that  of  Pasteur,  for  hydrophobia  (with- 
out the  inoculation).  His  bottles  are  numbered  from  one 
to  six,  and  are  taken  in  their  order.  There  is  no  shock  or 
pain  in  the  transition  period,  from  the  effects  of  a  spree 
to  complete  sobriety.  From  three  to  nine  days  after  com- 
mencing the  remedy  all  want  and  desire  for  alcoholic 
stimulants  of  any  kind  will  be  entirely  eradicated — the 
words,  "want  and  desire,"  in  their  broadest  and  most 
intensive  sense.  I  do  not  deny  the  patient  liquor  while 
under  treatment. 

It  was  concluded  to  try  the  experiment  and  so  after 
many  comical  as  well  as  sorrowful  experiences  on  the  trip, 
we  arrived  at  Dwight  on  the  morning  of  March  21,  1887, 
and  he  was  duly  installed  for  treatment.  I  left  him  that 
night,  going  on  to  Chicago,  from  which  place  I  wrote  him 
the  most  powerful  and  appealing,  yet  at  the  same  time 
firm  and  admonishing  letter,  that  a  friendship  such  as  ours 
could  inspire.  On  my  return  home  I  received  an  eight- 
page  letter,  which  in  his  agate  or  pearl  manuscript  would 
make  about  double  that  number  of  ordinary  writing.  Al- 
ready the  gold  cure  had  begun  to  have  its  first  effects,  and 
his  mind  seemed  to  be  clearing  rapidly.  He  wrote  con- 
cerning a  dozen  matters,  but  I  eliminate  in  this  article 
all  from  this  and  subsequent  letters  except  the  portions 
pertaining  to  his  struggle  against  "the  monster  of  drink" 
and  our  efforts  to  save  him. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  MAJOR  EDWARDS'  LETTERS. 

DWIGHT,  March  25,  1887. 

My  Dear  Morry :  I  have  received  your  letter  from 
Chicago.  It  is  very  true  in  many  things.  Very  strange 
in  some  others.  Very  unnecessary  in  a  few. 

That  I  was  a  fool  on  the  trip  here — oh,  such  a  fool — 
I  will  admit.  Do  you  think  I  have  not  suffered  for 
my  madness?  That  I  still  do  not  suffer?  That,  if  by 
way  of  expiation  I  could  recall  the  shame  and  mortifica- 


TWENTY   YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  41 

tion  I  caused  your  wife,  I  would  joyfully  put  my  right 
hand  in  the  flames  until 

"It  grew  fiery  red 
Like  Cramner's  at  the  stake." 

What  a  transformation  she  must  have  witnessed  in 
me  !  You  know  that  when  I  have  been  sober  and  traveled 
with  you  no  man  ever  sat  in  a  car  more  modest,  circum- 
spect and  dignified.  And  then  to  see  that  other  beast  of 
last  Sunday  and  Monday! 

*  *  *  The  picture  you  draw  of  the  sufferings  of  my 
wife  and  children  is  as  true  as  God  is  true.  It  is  the 
knowledge  of  this  fact  that  has  put  me  in  a  living  hell  for 
the  past  five  years,  for  during  this  time  my  drinking  has 
been  deeper,  longer  and  deadlier  than  ever  before.  How 
I  have  yearned  to  break  with  the  monster  of  drink,  fam- 
ishing days  and  horrible  midnights,  if  they  would  but 
speak,  would  all  too  truly  tell  you.  Days  with  a  con- 
science that  was  as  a  human  appetite,  feeding,  as  it  were, 
upon  a  living  soul,  if  this  could  speak  it  also  would  all 
too  truly  tell  you.  Separated  from  whisky,  if  there  is  a 
truer,  kinder,  tenderer  husband  and  father,  I  do  not  know 
him.  Then  why  do  I  drink?  Omniscience  knows.  It  is 
not  for  a  want  of  physical  courage,  for  no  one  has  ever 
doubted  that.  Not  for  a  want  of  moral  courage,  for  once 
at  the  side  of  a  friend,  I  could  defy  public  opinion  with 
an  infinite  scorn,  and  go  with  him  into  utter  darkness. 
Ah!  one  day  we  shall  know  it  all.  Yes,  one  day  we  shall 
know  it  all ! 

Now,  a  few  words  just  here  in  regard  to  yourself  and 
our  relationships  together.  Have  you  ever  doubted  for  a 
moment  that  I  did  not  understand  why  you  loved  me,  and 
why  you  have  stood  by  me  through  drunkenness,  neglect 
of  duty,  and,  at  times,  absolute  desertion?  Have  I  not 
told  you,  and  said  to  you,  and  written  to  you  over  and 
over  again  that  I  was  no  more  necessary  to  the  life  of  the 
Times,  or  to  its  future  growth,  position,  or  prosperity, 
than  the  man  in  the  moon?  No  man  has  ever  dared  yet 
to  tell  me  that  your  friendship  was  merely  mercenary,  or 
that  you  only  wanted  me  because  I  might  be  utilized  in 
some  bare  pecuniary  sense.  I  knew  that  we  ought  to  get 
together  again.  That,  as  it  were,  we  supplemented  one 
another.  That  I  had  some  qualities  which  you  did  not 
possess,  and  you  many  that  I  did  not.  That  we  were  so 
congenial  in  so  many  things,  and  knew  so  well  how  to  do 
so  many  things  in  common.  That  allied,  we  could  con- 
quer fate;  that  joined  with  you,  and  being  guided  by 


42  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

you,  and  going  with  3-011  hand  in  hand,  you  could  put  me 
beyond  want  in  my  old  days,  and  some  other  day  take  me 
out  of  the  shafts  of  a  dray  horse.  This  is  what  I  knew, 
and  this  is  what  I  have  always  proclaimed  from  the  house- 
tops. 

Suppose  silly  lies  have  been  told  as  to  our  relation- 
ships and  the  reasons  given  by  some  malignant  devils,  who 
hate  us  both,,  why  you  have  taken  me  drunk  from  hotels, 
paid  my  bills,  sent  me  to  hospitals  to  save  me,  and  stood 
by  me  almost  to  a  funeral  ?  Isn't  God's  blessed  sunshine 
in  our  hearts  for  each  other,  and  God's  blessed  sunshine 
all  about  us  to  make  glorious  and  luminous  in  our  lives 
those  places  made  perfect  forever  where  our  devotion 
began  and  lingered  at,  and  dwelt  upon  these  twenty  years 
and  more  ?  Doesn't  my  wife  know  it  ?  Haven't  we  talked 
it  all  over  a  thousand  times  ?  Let  us  dispose  of  this  thing 
now  and  forever.  Whatever  else  happens  in  this  world — 
and  if  the  time  ever  does  come  when  we  have  to  take  our 
ways  apart,  we  will  go  away  with  not  as  much  shadow  of 
a  cloud  betwixt  us  as  would  fleck  even  the  grasses  or  the 
flowers  upon  a  baby's  grave. 

*  *  *  As  to  my  situation  here,  it  is  about  this  : 
Keeley  has  been  very  kind.  I  have  taken  his  medicine  as 
prescribed.  I  have  no  more  desire  to  drink  than  if  whisky 
were  prussic  acid.  There  is  a  bottle  now  before  me  sent 
here  by  him  he  says  especially  to  tempt  me.  Since  Tues- 
day night  last  I  have  abhorred  liquor  in  every  shape.  I  do 
not  understand  it  at  all.  He  has  invited  me  to  drink 
several  times,  and  keeps  a  very  fine  article  always  in  his 
office.  I  pulled  the  cork  out  of  the  bottle  in  my  room  and 
smelt  the  whisky.  It  was  positively  loathsome.  I  shall  send 
forward  after  to-day  bushels  of  editorial.  *  *  *  Please 
send  word  to  my  wife  that  I  am  all  right.  I  have  not  had 
the  heart  to  write  to  her  since  being  here.  There  are 
times  when  even  I  will  not  commit  sacrilege. 
Your  friend  as  ever, 


I  give  some  other  extracts  by  date  which  tell  their  own 
story  without  comment: 

DWIGHT,  March  30,  1887. 

*  *  *  A  week  ago  yesterday,  Tuesday,  I  took  my  last 
drink.  There  is  a  bottle  now  standing  upon  a  table  in  the 
room.  I  hate  it.  It  has  been  standing  there  since  yesterday 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  43 

week.  I  see  it  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  and  the  last 
thing  at  night.  I  do  not  understand  anything  about  it. 
All  I  know  is  that  the  very  thought  of  liquor  makes  me 
sick.  I  am  as  well  as  I  ever  was  in  my  life.  I  walk  about 
five  miles  a  day,  eat  everything,  and  pour  editorials  in  on 
you  by  every  mail.  I  have  done  some  good  writing,  if  I 
do  say  it  myself. 

DWIGHT,  March  30,  1887. 

Since  I  wrote  to  you  this  morning  I  have  received  your 
very  kind  and  welcome  letter.  It  did  me  a  power  of  good. 

Have  no  fear  of  me.  I  will  stick  to  a  funeral.  If  it  is 
three  weeks,  then  it  is  three  weeks.  I  was  never  better, 
physically  in  all  my  life,  and,  as  I  told  you  this  morning, 
I  hate  even  the  smell  of  liquor.  I  feel  and  believe  that  1 
am  saved.  In  fact  I  know  it. 

DWIGHT,  April  1,  1887. 

I  am  as  well  as  I  ever  was  in  my  life,  and  hate  liquor 
more  and  more  every  day.  I  could  take  the  medicine  just 
as  well  at  home  as  here,  but  if  it  is  three  weeks  then  it  is 
three  weeks.  Don't  rely  on  a  word  I  say,  but  write  to 
Keeley.  I  find  him  an  exceedingly  strong  man  in  his 
profession,  and  possessed  of  a  vast  erudition.  I  can  not 
fathom  his  medicine,  however,  nor  do  I  know  one  thing 
ubout  its  therapeutic  effect.  I  only  know  that  it  kills 
whisky  like  a  ferret  kills  a  rat. 

DWIGHT,  April  2,  1887. 

I  received  your  letter  of  the  31st  this  morning.  I  am 
in  splendid  health,  still  hate  liquor,  and  feel  that  I  shall 
never  touch  it  again.  That  is  all  I  know  about  it.  I  just 
know  that  I  hate  the  very  smell  of  it.  I  will  stay  the 
twenty-one  days  gladly,  although  I  believe  fully  that  the 
appetite  is  broken  up,  root  and  branch. 

DWIGHT,  April  4,  1887. 

A  week  from  to-day  I  will  have  been  here  twenty-one 
days.  Then  I  shall  start  back.  Still  the  same  feeling  in 
regard  to  whisky.  I  have  no  more  desire  for  it  than  for 
prussic  acid.  More  than  that,  I  do  not  even  think  of  it. 
The  bottle  is  still  on  the  table  in  my  room,  uncorked  and 
unnoticed.  Not  for  ten  years  have  I  been  free  from  a 
constant  desire  for  alcohol  in  some  shape  until  I  came 
here.  Of  late  years  that  desire  had  become  almost  second 
nature,  the  appetite  becoming  stronger  and  stronger  with 
each  spree.  Now  it  is  totally  eradicated.  How  it  passed 
away  I  can  not  say.  There  was  no  effort  on  my  part,  no 
struggle  of  any  kind.  The  usual  horrible  depression  was 


44  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

totally  absent.  Dr.  Keeley  offered  me  liquor  over  and 
over  again — indeed,  he  really  tried  to  tempt  me  to  drink, 
but  the  very  thought  of  drinking  made  me  sick.  I  do 
not  explain  anything.  I  can  not  explain  anything  con- 
nected with  the  medicine  any  more  than  I  can  explain  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  In  a  physical  sense  I  only  know 
that  I  do  not  want  to  drink. 

DWIGHT,  APEIL  5,  1887. 

I  inclose  you  a  statement  of  my  account,  up  to  next 
Monday,  the  llth,  at  half  past  three  o'clock,  p.  M. 
when  I  take  the  Denver  train  for  Kansas  City,  as,  I  believe, 
a  thoroughly  cured  man.  You  will  see  that  I  bring  four 
bottles  of  the  medicine  with  me.  If  I  am  cured,  which  mean 
life  and  everything  to  me,  I  will  owe  it  solely  to  you.  I 
see  things  more  clearly  to-day  than  I  have  seen  them  in 
ten  years.  If  there  is  one  trait  in  my  character  stronger 
than  another,  it  is  that  of  gratitude.  If  you  were  to  ask 
me  to  stand  by  your  side  when  the  chances  were  a  thou- 
sand to  one  that  we  would  both  be  killed,  I  would  stand  as 
joyfully  as  I  ever  went  forth  to  play  or  hunt  as  a  boy. 
This  is  the  physical  part  of  my  love  for  you.  The  other  part 
is  to  show  you  that  I  am  worthy  of  your  devotion  to  me, 
which  has  been  shown  under  circumstances  that  would 
have  driven  away  from  me  a  million  of  so-called  friends 
and  even  relations. 

DWIGHT,  April  6,  1887. 

I  have  talked  with  Dr.  Keeley  fully,  freely  and 
frankly.  I  have  obeyed  him  in  everything,  and  he  is 
clearly  of  the  opinion  that  21  days  is  enough  to  stay  here. 
He  is  satisfied  perfectly  as  to  the  cure,  and  I  bring  four 
bottles  with  me.  He  wrote  you  fully  to-day.  If  nothing 
happens  I  will  be  at  home  next  Tuesday  morning,  the  3 2th. 
I  am  awful  tired,  but  I  am  free.  What  a  glorious  thing 
is  freedom.  I  still  hate  liquor  with  an  abiding  hatred. 

DWIGHT,  April  7,  1887. 

I  am  still  as  I  was  the  second  day  of  my  arrival  here. 
I  have  not  the  least  desire  for  whisky.  Keeley  shows  me 
letters  from  all  over  the  United  States  bearing  testimony 
to  the  efficacy  of  his  cure  for  both  liquor  and  opium.  It 
is  astonishing. 

I) WIGHT,  April  9,  1887. 

I  have  just  received  your  kind  letter  with  inclosures. 
Well,  next  Tuesday  morning 

"In  other  guise  than  forth  he  rode, 
Will  return  Lord  Marmion." 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  45 

I  will  get  off  at  Grand  avenue.  I  never  felt  better,  and 
never  felt  freer  from  all  desire  to  drink.  I  am  on  my  fifth 
bottle  of  gold  cure. 

Dr.  Keeley  spoke  of  having  also  received  a  letter  from 
you  to-day.  He  did  not  show  it  to  me. 

Way  late  in  the  night,  while  I  have  been  communing 
with  the  moon  and  the  stars,  I  have  in  my  walks  run  across 
here  and  there  one  of  the  Doctor's  opium  patients.  They 
are  a  curious  race  of  human  beings.  I  go  to  them,  hunt 
them  up;  and  try  to  draw  them  out.  One  had  a  face  like 
what  I  imagine  a  vampire  ought  to  have.  His  eyes  were 
scintillant.  He  was  in  an  old  field  sitting  on  a  stump. 
His  pallor  was  the  pallor  of  a  corpse  that  had  been  three 
days  dead.  Under  some  sort  of  an  occult  mesmerism  that 
I  did  not  understand,  I  went  out  to  him  and  commenced  to 
talk.  He  raved  like  a  madman,  and  fairly  shrieked  for  me 
to  go  away.  I  went.  I  swear  to  you  that  I  have  seen  that 
vampire  face  every  night  for  a  week  since. 


DR.  KEELEY'S  CONFIDENCE. 

As  corroborative  of  the  confidence  the  Major  felt  I 
give  some  extracts  from  letters  of  Dr.  Keeley: 

DWIGHT,  April  6, 1887. 

Your  truly  kind  letter  of  the  3d  inst.  came  in  this 
morning  and  I  hasten  to  answer  it. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  tell  you  that  I  think  the  good 
Major  entirely  cured.  He  tells  me  that  he  has  absolutely 
no  thought  of  liquor,  consequently  no  crave,  and  further 
that  he  has  had  none  since  the  evening  of  the  second  day 
after  coming.  He  has  still  in  his  room  the  last  four 
ounces  that  I  bought  for  him  that  evening,  and  intends 
to  take  it  home  to  you  as  "  an  earnest "  of  "  the  miracle 
God  hath  wrought"  in  his  case. 

I  shall  be  very  sorry  indeed  when  the  dear  Major  leaves 
us,  he  is  so  companionable,  or  as  our  "  janitress"  says,  so 
"knowledgable."  He  has  made  friends  with  everybody 
with  whom  he  has  come  in  contact  here,  and  many  will 
share  my  regret  in  his  leaving.  He  has  been  one  of  the 
most  patient  and  obedient  gentlemen  whom  I  have  had  to 
treat,  and  has  taken  as  much  pains  to  make  his  treatment 
a  success  as  his  friends  could  wish. 

I  agree  with  you  now,  that  the  dear  gentleman  is  bet- 
ter worth  saving  than  two-thirds  of  the  patients  who  have 
come  here.  You  remember  you  told  me  I  would  think  so 


46  »    JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

before  he  left.     May  God  keep  and  protect  him  in  all  the 
future. 

DWIGHT,  April  11,  1887. 

Our  good  Major  left  us  this  afternoon,  and  will  reach 
you  before  this  letter.  We  are  all  sorry  to  lose  him,  and 
none  more  so  than  myself.  May  the  dear  Christ  go  with 
him,  keep  him  and  preserve  him,  is  the  wish  of  his  many 
friends  here.  I  think -you  will  find  a  wonderful  change  in 
him,  and  I  am  almost  persuaded  that  it  is  a  permanent 
one  for  good. 

Dr.  Keeley  suggested  to  me  when  I  left  the  Major  at 
D  wight  that  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  have  some  of  his 
friends  write  him  kind  and  encouraging  letters  to  "brace 
him  up,"  and  I  accordingly  wrote  to  Colonel  Burnes, 
among  others,  which  led  to  the  passage  of  several  letters 
between  us.  His  letters  cover  the  situation  so  fully  and 
analytically  and  at  the  same  time  are  so  tender  and  full  of 
friendship  that  I  am  tempted  to  give  some  extracts: 

COLONEL  BURNES'  HOPES  AND  FEARS. 

ST.  JOSEPH,  March  26,  1887. 

Dear  Dr.  Munford :  I  am  just  in  receipt  of  your  pro- 
foundly interesting  favor  written  in  Chicago,  and  beg  to 
say  that  with  all  my  heart  and  soul  I  am  truly  grateful  for 
the  confidence  you  give  me,  also  for  the  genuine  spirit  of 
kindness  so  plainly  manifest.  It  is  upon  such  confidences 
and  kindnesses  that  the  friendship  "  which  sticketh  closer 
than  a  brother "  is  safely  founded,  and  they  alone  lend 
enchantment  and  encouragement  to  the  daily  struggles  of 
life  which,  at  best,  are  of  brief  and  valueless  results  to 
us  all. 

Poor,  dear  John!  A  thousand  times  I  have  realized 
that  the  course  you  have  now  taken  was  the  only  one  that 
remained.  Everything  else  has  been  tried,  over  and  over 
again,  in  vain.  Your  whole  course  toward  him,  and  this 
last  action,  more  supremely  than  all  your  varied  goodness 
and  kindness  to  him  for  years  before,  conclusively  evi- 
dences an  interest  in  and  a  love  for  him  that  is  God-like. 
Let  us  hope — but  so  many  bitter  disappointments  in  the 
past  make  me  tremble  at  the  use  of  the  word — that  this 
present  step  will  result  in  his  permanent  restoration  ;  but 
as  it  is  our  last  hope,  let  us  be  firm  in  making  his  stay 
long  and  thorough.  I  need  scarcely  add,  that  I  will  most 
fully  comply  with  your  wishes  and  instructions,  and  do 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  47 

everything  in  my  power  to  aid  and  second  your  efforts.  If 
I  can  see  him  to  any  advantage,  I  will  visit  D  wight  for 
the  purpose,  and  whenever  you  think  it  best  I  will  write 
him,  with  earnest  exhortation,  to  aid  by  constant  resolu- 
tion and  effort  your  noble  purpose  to  save  him  for  the 
benefit  of  his  family,  his  friends  and  mankind.  He  knows 
full  well  that  my  love  for  him  is  as  strong  as  life,  and  has 
always  appeared  to  yield  something  to  my  judgment.  On 
the  one  accursed  subject — his  lamentable  failing — no  one 
can  control  him  by  any  ordinary  methods.  His  is  a  dis- 
ease beyond  all  question,  and  should  be  eradicated,  root 
and  branch.  All  we  can  now  do  is  to  soothe  and  nurse 
him  as  an  infant. 

ST.  JOSEPH,  April  7,  1887. 

Your  valued  and  deeply  interesting  favor  of  the  3d 
gives  me  profound  hope  and  joy.  At  the  same  time  dis- 
appointment has  so  often  followed  a  similar  creation — 
bitter  and  cruel  disappointment — that  I  venture  to  suggest: 
Be  in  no  haste  to  recall  the  cherished  object  of  our  most 
affectionate  solicitude  from  his  safe  and  pleasant  retreat. 
According  to  the  authority  in  charge  he  has  a  disease. 
I  have,  for  a  long  time,  regarded  it  as  a  disease.  It  is  of 
all  diseases  the  most  hypocritical.  It  is  a  disease  with 
limitless  cunning  and  all  the  qualities  of  the  opossum. 
In  its  consequences  or  results  are  to  be  found  there  its 
triumphs.  Its  victim — John  himself — is  deceived  and 
betrayed  by  it.  It  lulls  him,  by  a  vain  sense  of  security, 
into  a  belief  that  he  is  capable — strong  enough — to  win  a 
fight  with  it.  Deceived  himself,  his  infinite  variety  of 
influence,  his  unparalleled  power  over  his  attendants  and 
friends,  whose  stern  judgment  surrenders  too  soon  to  a 
lovable  sympathy,  make  them  easy  victims  of  this  our 
confidence  and  cordiality. 

I  need  not — perhaps  ought  not  to  say  this  to  you — for 
you  have  much  more  of  the  iron  in  your  blood  than  I — 
without  less  of  womanly  tenderness  ;  but  the  resources  of 
John's  enemy  are  so  infinite  that  it  takes  us  all,  as  well  as 
himself,  to  win  even  a  partial  victory. 

How  nobly  he  writes  to  yon !  How  nobly  he  writes, 
and  feels  and  thinks  !  He  believes  he  can  never  fall 
again.  He  is  amazed  at  his  past  folly.  His  intellectual 
perceptions  are  now  complete  and  perfect,  but  is  he  free 
from  his  disease?  God  knows  I  hope  so  with  all  my  heart; 
but  after  a  brief  treatment,  even  a  treatment  so  faith- 
inspiring,  do  I  believe  as  a  matter  of  experience  or 
judgment  that  he  can  now  stand?  Alas!  do  I  ?  Will 
it  not  take  time — long  time — time  to  kill,  and  then  to 


48  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

eradicate,  purge  away  the  last  vestige  of  the  invidious, 
treacherous  monsters  that  have  pursued  and  tormented 
him  so  long  ! 

ST.  JOSEPH,  April  14,  1887. 

Your  esteemed  favor  of  the  10th  just  received.  I  am 
very  thankful  for  your  great  kindness  in  thus  advising 
me  of  the  good  news.  An  hundred  times  I  have  said  I 
can  never,  alas,  have  any  more  hope,  and  yet  I  confess, 
now,  it  is  strong  again.  I  do  again  believe  and  trust. 
Surely  we  will  no  more  suffer  disappointment.  You  have 
done  the  work;  it  is  noble  and  God-like.  If  I  could  envy 
such  a  friend  and  such  a  gentleman,  as  yourself,  the  glory 
and  satisfaction  fairly  won,  I  would  wish  that  I  had  been 
the  savior  of  John  Edwards  as  you  are.  But  fortunately 
my  happiness  in  the  result  is  too  perfect  and  complete  to 
o,dmit  of  any  base  alloy. 

I  met  the  Major  at  the  depot  that  Tuesday  morning, 
April  12th,  on  his  return  from  Dwight.  I  was  there  ahead 
of  time,  and  I  wondered,  half  in  doubt,  in  what  manner 
he  would  appear.  The  train  drew  up  and  soon  I  saw  him 
coming  along,  and  truly — 

"In  other  guise  than  forth  he  rode." 

His  hearty  handshake;  his  joyous,  half  silent  laugh 
which  always  reminded  me  of  "  Pathfinders,"  as  described 
by  Cooper;  his  appearance,  his  gait,  all  were  an  occular 
demonstration  of  the  wonderful  change  effected  in  three 
weeks.  There  was  much  rejoicing  in  several  households, 
and  among  all  his  true  friends  that  day,  and  for  some 
weeks  thereafter.  But  alas!  the  foreboding  and  misgiv- 
ing of  Colonel  Burnes  proved  only  too  true.  The  disease 
was  not  eradicated,  and  in  less  than  a  month  the  "  mon- 
ster of  drink  "  had  full  control  again.  A  second  experi- 
ment at  Dwight  was  tried  with  substantially  the  same 
results  as  the  first  one.  Later  on,  during  the  past  year 
the  virtues  of  Excelsior  Springs  were  tested  on  two  occa- 
sions with  satisfactory  results,  which,  however,  did  not 
prove  lasting.  The  additional  extracts  below  are  from 
letters  written  while  there,  and  also  others  from  time  to 
time  until  his  death,  all  pertaining  to  this  subject: 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  49 

MORE  OF  MAJOR  EDWARDS'  LETTERS. 

EXCELSIOR  SPRINGS,  June  20,  1888. 

Well,  we  got  here  Saturday  night  safe  and  sound. 
Saturday  morning  I  began  on  the  water.  In  an  hour  I 
was  so  sick  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  could  hear  the 
first  ten  notes  of  the  final  trumpet.  All  day  Saturday 
and  Sunday  night,  all  day  Monday  and  Monday  night  I 
could  not  lift  my  head  scarcely  from  the  pillow.  Tuesday 
morniDg  I  managed  to  crawl  to  a  bath  house;  like  Napo- 
leon at  St.  Helena,  I  managed  to  stay  in  one,  off  and  on, 
for  four  hours.  This  Wednesday  morning  I  went  to  work. 
I  send  forward  four  articles. 

Of  course  every  hour  here  is  a  purgatory,  with  no  priest 
in  a  thousand  miles  to  help  prayr  me  out.  All  that  it  is 
possible  for  these  waters  to  do  in  the  way  of  curing 
alcoholism — all  that  it  has  ever  been  claimed  that  they 
would  do — is  to  break  the  drinking  gait,  bring  a  man 
back  to  a.  realization  of  his  sense  of  duty,  and  leave  the 
balance  in  his  own  hands.  Still,  I  will  stay  as  long  as 
you  desire. 

EXCELSIOR  SPRINGS,  June  23,  1888. 

As  this  is  the  first  clear  day  for  one  solid  week,  I  have 
lived  out  of  doors  as  one  of  the  captured  Apaches  might 
live  if  suddenly  from  the  Dry  Tortugas  he  were  carried  to 
his  own  Madre  Mountains  and  there  set  free  with  God  and 
immensity.  As  five  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  are  all 
that  I  can  ever  sleep,  whisky  or  no  whisky,  I  wait  for 
the  darkness  to  do  my  thinking.  For  hours  and  hours, 
and  far  into  the  night,  I  sit  by  an  open  window  and  think. 
Here,  I  have  gone  over  the  entire  political  field  from 
Washington  City  to  Jefferson  City.  *  *  * 

And  yet  you  would  put  me  to  writing  "  literary  arti- 
cles." No,  no,  Morry,  I  can  not  dance  attendance  upon — 

"Sweet  Miss  Fanny,  of  Trafalgar  Square," 
While  outside  the  bugles  are  singing, 

"  All  the  Blue  Bonnets  are  over  the  border." 

You  also  say  :  "  This  is  a  sad  ending  to  all  our  hopes 
and  expectations."  Say,  rather,  their  resurrection,  Morry. 
There  comes  a  time  to  every  one  of  my  disposition  when 
he  regains  his  second  youth,  or  rather,  second  manhood. 
That  period  was  very  near  to  me.  I  had  come  at  last  to 
look  my  condition  full  in  the  face.  I  saw  just  what  had  to 
be  done.  I  was  surely  providing  for  every  friend  to  whom 
I  owed  a  dollar.  I  was  getting  further  and  further  away 
from  whisky.  I  was  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  a  condi- 
tion of  independence,  and  I  saw  clearer  and  clearer  per- 


50  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

severance  in  mining  matters  was  nearly  equal  to  gold.  But 
no  matter  all  this.  This  will  belong  to  some  business  talks 
we  will  have  before  we  separate  for  a  period  which  neither 
of  us  can  now  reckon  accurately  upon.  How  true  a  friend 
you  have  been  to  me,  I  will  not  here  narrate.  How 
splendidly  I  would  have  stood  at  your  side  through  any 
storm,  crisis,  or  disaster,  it  does  not  become  me  now  to 
declare.  Wherever  you  are  I  will  always  be  glad  to  hear 
the  story  of  your  happiness  and  progress — of  some  triumph 
grateful  in  a  personal  way,  some  victory  won  over  the 
Pharisees  and  Philistines. 

I  had  better  come  home  next  Friday,  I  reckon.  My 
pass  ends  next  Saturday,  the  30th.  Further  expense  here 
is  unnecessary.  All  the  good  the  water  can  do  has  been 
done.  I  am  free  from  all  desire,  in  perfect  health,  can  eat 
anything,  digest  anything,  but  I  do  not  sleep.  Nor  have 
I  more  than  five  hours  a  night  for  years.  The  fight  from 
this  on  I  must  make  myself,  and,  God  willing,  I  intend  to 
make  it. 

EXCELSIOR  SPRINGS,  June  26,  1888. 

I  am  coming  back  with  a  renewed  youth,  and  a  deter- 
mination to  show  you  that  all  your  kindness  to  me,  and 
friendship  for  me,  and  devotion  to  me  have  not  been  in 
vain.  Morry,  I  will  be  a  sober  man.  Our  last  days  shall 
be  our  best. 

I  see  the  town  this  morning,  and  the  fog  above  it,  and 
a  great  cloud  bank  against  the  sun,  but, 

"My  heart  is  far  away, 
Sailing  the  Vesuvian  bay." 

Good-bye.  As  the  Spanish  say:  Asia  lue  ago — until 
we  meet  again. 

KANSAS  CITY,  June  28,  1888. 

The  trip  to  the  Springs  enabled  me  to  break  my  gait. 
Having  fully  resolved  to  change  my  whole  life  as  far  as 
whisky  drinking  is  concerned,  I  only  ask  an  opportunity 
to  show  you  what  is  in  me. 

KANSAS  CITY,  July  20,  1888. 

God  of  Israel!  If  for  two  weeks  I  have  not  suffered 
the  tortures  of  the  damned,  then,  as  Sheridan  said,  one 
might  just  as  well  rent  out  hell  and  live  in  Texas. 

I  have  crawled  from  my  bed,  bent  double  with  pain, 
and  tried  to  work.'  The  spirit  was  willing  but  the  flesh 
was  weak.  "Acute  inflammation  of  the  duodenum" 
was  diagnosed,  whatever  that  may  be,  and  yet  1  was 
drunk,  when  a  quart  of  whisky  would  have  killed  me. 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  51 

But  no  matter.     One  can  not  always  eat  his  cake  and  have 
it  too. 

KANSAS  CITY,  August  27,  1888. 

I  am  at  home  working  like  a  gopher,  and  taking  gold 
cure  within  an  inch  of  my  life.  This  time  I  will  anchor 
the  old  ship  or  wreck  her.  I  have  Keeley's  later  process. 

KANSAS  CITY,  August  29,  1888. 

*  *     *    In  my  own  behalf  I  have  not  a  single  word  to 
say.     If  I  knew  a  million  I  would  not  utter  one.     I  knew  it 
had  to  come,  sooner  or  later,  and  why  not  now?    And  yet  I 
should  have   triumphed.     Just  think  of  that;  I  should 
have  triumphed.     Of  course  I  might  get  sick  enough  to 
die,  and  all  who  knew  me  might  declare  that  I  was  on  a 
spree.     Such  was  not  the  case  when  I  saw  you  last.     Such 
has  not  been  the  case  these  two  weeks. 

This  information,  however,  is  mere  words.  I  sincerely 
wanted  you  to  know  the  truth,  so  that  when  some  snake- 
in-the-grass  goes  to  gloating  over  my  drunkenness,  you 
can  give  him  the  lie. 

*  *     *     I  am  a  political  writer.     It  is  only  when  I  feel 
depressed  or  cast  down,  or  it  is  dark  all  around,  that  I  write 
something  sad,  or  of  pitiful  episodes,  or  of  men  or  women 
who  sing  low  in  the  twilight: 

"By  the  shore  of  life  and  the  gate  of  breath, 
There  are  more  things  waiting  for  men  than  death." 

KANSAS  CITY,  January  8,  1889. 

Last  Friday,  January  4th,  was  my  birthday — fifty-one 
years  old.  I  feel  like  twenty-five.  I  went  to  my  priest, 
laid  my  hand  upon  the  crucifix,  and  swore  to  the  God  who 
made  us  all,  never  again  to  touch  liquor.  You  laugh. 
Very  well — you  have  good  cause.  Watch  and  wait. 

KANSAS  CITY,  January  11,  1889. 

Since  the  cloud  of  liquor  has  been  lifted,  work  is  all 
my  consolation.  To  save  my  life  I  can't  lie  in  bed  over 
five  hours.  Often  and  often  I  get  up  at  three  in  the 
morning  and  go  to  work.  I  can  eat  anything,  digest 
anything,  stand  any  amount  of  fatigue  and  exposure,  but 
I  can't  sleep.  Perhaps  all  this  will  regulate  itself. 

Have  you  anything  else  for  me  to  do  by  way  of  occu- 
pation— literature,  reminiscences  with  all  individuality 
left  out,  anything?  I  wan't  more  load  to  carry — more 
ground  to  plow. 

KANSAS  CITY,  February  2,  1889. 

Morry,  I  am  a  curious  man.  So,  also,  are  you.  I  swear 
to  you  that  when  I  looked  upon  his  face  (Col.  Burnes)  in 


52  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

the  coffin  there,  I  said  this  to  myself,  "Who  will  be 
next?  Will  Munford  look  upon  the  face  of  Edwards,  or 
will  Edwards  look  upon  the  face  of  Munford?" 

KANSAS  CITY,  March  19,  1889. 

I  have  nothing  on  earth  to  reproach  you  with.  You 
have  done  for  me  what  but  few  brothers  would  have  done. 
I  recognize  the  situation  as  fully  as  I  recognized  the  over- 
throw of  the  Confederacy. 

I  shall  make  one  more  effort.  If  I  fail  I  will  come  to 
you — loyally,  frankly  and  honestly,  and  say:  "It  is  fin- 
ished. Choose  some  one  else  to  do  what  you  had  a  right 
to  expect  me  to  do." 

These  words  of  John  Edwards  during  the  last  two 
years  of  his  life,  from  March  25,  1887,  to  March  19, 
1889,  contain  a  more  graphic  and  pathetic  account  of  his 
unavailing  struggle  against  his  only  enemy,  "the  monster 
of  drink/'  than  any  other  pen  could  depict.  They  are  at 
times  disconnected  and  scattered  over  long  periods,  but 
the  extracts  given  are  verbatim  from  his  letters.  I  doubt 
not  I  have  mislaid  or  failed  to  preserve  many  others  written 
during  this  period,  which  might  perhaps  fill  up  the  gaps, 
but  these  are  not  necessary,  the  skeleton  is  shown,  and  it 
requires  little  imagination  to  fill  :up  the  interstices  and 
round  out  the  details.  With  such  a  framework,  a  genius 
like  his  could  weave  such  a  sad  and  pathetic  story  as  would 
surpass  in  vividness  De  Quincey's  "Confessions." 

In  the  many  letters  I  have  of  Major  Edwards — among 
them  those  from  which  the  foregoing  extracts  are  taken — 
hundreds  of  topics  of  a  different  character  and  on  different 
subjects  are  mentioned  in  a  manner  that  only  he  could 
touch  them.  Much  of  this  is  of  a  semi-personal  nature, 
growing  out  of  his  relations  toward  me  and  his  connection 
with  the  Times.  Much  relates  to  State  and  National 
politics,  to  individuals  and  events  as  they  were  presented 
at  the  time.  All  are  interesting — private  and  not  written 
for  publication — therefore  the  more  interesting  to  the 
public.  Much  contained  in  those  letters  can  "ot  yet  be 
published,  as  the  comments  on  politicians  and  public  men 
would  be  premature.  In  the  extracts  subjoined  I  have 
intended  to  include  nothing  that  would  offend  any  living 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP  53 

person — certainly  no  one  in  Missouri.  Among  the  follow- 
ing will  be  found  in  full  the  last  letter  I  ever  received  from 
him  : 

LETTERS  ON  DIFFERENT  TOPICS. 

KANSAS  CITY,  August  18,  1887. 

I   saw briefly,  but  had  no  talk.     He  was 

looking  everywhere  for  you.  That's  a  Black  Prince  for 
you.  I  had  rather  have  him  on  the  skirmish  line  alone 
than  ten  of  Shelby's  picked  body  guard — picked  for  a 
personal  daring  that  never  had  an  equal.  — ,  as  a  scout, 
is  everything.  Cool,  quiet,  dumb  as  a  dead  man  when 
you  need  wariness;  noisy  as  a  brass  band  when  you  want 
fun,  or  frolic,  or  boisterousness;  pensive  as  a  quaker,  yet 
laughing  to  himself  at  the  incongruous  things  of  a  day's 
travel;  impenetrable,  seeing  all  things,  hearing  all  things, 
knowing  all  things.  Lord,  what  a  line  of  priesthood  this 
Tennessee  Melchizedek  might  have  created. 

KANSAS  CITY,  August  19, 1887. 

Now,  Morry,  I  have  given  you  my  candid  opinion  of 

.  You  could  even  put  him  on  guard  at  the 

great  gate  of  Jerusalem  while  Titus  was  thundering 
away  on  the  outside.  I  am  in  no  need  to  tell  you  about 
him,  only  this:  In  view  of  my  almost  immediate  depart- 
ure from  Kansas  City,  and  to  a  country  that  is  not  blessed 
with  quite  so  many  railroads  as  we  have,  it  would  be  a 
splendid  act  of  political  policy  to  put  him  on  the  paper. 
Indeed,  he  could  do  much  better  without  me  than  I  could 
do  without  him,  were  I  back  again.  I  know  you  hate 
politics,  but  you  certainly  ought  to  use  your  own  paper  to 
defend  yourself.  To  fight  your  enemies  with  all  modern 
weapons,  and  forage  liberally  upon  the  enemy,  always. 

What  matters  how  rich  your  newspaper  is  ?  How 
fully  it  can  be  made  to  drift  and  drift,  merely  keeping  its 
head  to  the  wind.  How  e(  faultlessly  nice,  and  icily  dull " 
some  of  its  features  are — no  matter  all  these  things  and 
more — I  had  rather  anchor  such  a  craft,  broad-side  on, 
and  square  up  for  a  funeral  against  the  whole  fleet  of  the 
enemy,  than  to  keep  out  of  the  fight  in  Missouri  a  single 
hour.  There  is  the  threat  to  drive  you  from  the  party. 
Your  want  of  activity  and  aggressiveness  will  be  miscon- 
strued. Men  would  call  you  coward  who  would  not  dare 
to  face  you.  And  so  it  would  go.  Without  miners,  with- 
out boring,  and  digging,  and  putting  down  dynamite,  and 
making  here  a  clean  alliance;  there  a  combination,  and 


54  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

everywhere  scouts  who  report  daily  or  weekly,  a  campaign 
would  be  like  the  bridal  meal  given  by  the  high  contract- 
ing parties, 

"  And  what  do  you  think  they  had  for  dinner? 
Two  little  fish  and  one  little  minnow!" 

can  save  you  from  all  this.   As  God  is  my  judge, 

Morry,  I  would  not  have  you  simply  wipe  out  the  political 
prestige  of  your  newspaper  for  all  the  money  you  possess, 
now  or  hereafter,  so  I  have  insisted  upon  and  do  insist 

upon .  Do  not  quit  the  field  at  the  first  onset.    I  have 

told  you  fifty  times  that  no  man's  life  was  necessary  to  the 
Times.  It  will  go  on  just  the  same.  And  just  think  what 
a  campaign  it  is  going  to  be.  Revolution  everywhere. 
Unrest  everywhere.  Threats,  passion,  eager  defiance 
everywhere.  Try  it,  anyhow.  In  no  possible  way  can  it 
lead  up  to  your  experiment  with  me. 

EXCELSIOR  SPRINGS,  June  23,  1888. 

Morry,  so  sure  as  we  two  live  to  see  next  November, 
we  will  see  Cleveland  a  beaten  man.  His  message  killed 
him.  You  remember  the  charge  of  the  Light  Brigade  at 
Balaklava.  A  French  commander,  General  Bosquet,  was 
looking  on.  Asked  an  aide  :  "What  do  you  think  of 
that,  General  ?"  "It  is  magnificent,  but  it  is  not  war." 

If  Harrison  is  nominated,  it  will  be  a  fight  for  life  and 
death  in  Indiana,  with  the  odds  all  against  us,  and  if  we 
do  not  carry  Indiana,  good-bye,  Grover !  We  have  no 
more  chance  of  carrying  a  single  other  Western  State  than  a 
man  has  of  life  who  has  been  bitten  by  a  cobra  de  capello. 
Wisconsin  !  Wisconsin  devil.  Michigan  !  Michigan  two 
devils.  Whatever  else  you  and  I  may  be,  do  not  let  us  be 
fools.  And  then  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey.  They 
are  tariff  to  the  core,  as  you  and  I  are  Confeder- 
ates. Kandall,  by  a  still  hunt  never  before  surpassed 
in  American  politics,  carried  them  for  Cleveland.  And 
his  reward?  An  iceberg  thrust  down  his  back,  and  an 
avalanche  poured  over  his  head.  His  corpulency  can  also 
be  an  exhausted  receiver  upon  occasion.  For  the  lifted 
hand  of  Randall  no  latch-string  hangs  out  at  the  Wliite 
House  door.  Mr.  Scott,  of  Pennsylvania,  attended  to 
that — a  cerberus  with  a  single  head.  You  know  what  the 
French  say  :  "Nothing  succeeds  like  ingratitude."  Very 
well.  We  shall  see. 

For  Missouri  now:  I  read  Glover's  interview  in  this 
morning's  Times.  As  to  Morehouse,  he  was  never  more 
mistaken  in  his  life — Glover,  I  mean,  when  he  intimates 


TYTIZNTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  55 

that  he,  Morehouse,  does  nor  know  his  own  strength.    He 
does  know  it  to  within  ten  votes.     So  far,  the  race  is 


diers  of  the  guard,  but  do  not  let  us  deceive  ourselves. 
His  only  hope  on  earth  is  in  an  alliance  with  Morehouse. 
For  heaven's  sake  !  do  not  think  me  a  pessimist.  I  am 
writing  to  you  like  one  brother  would  write  to  another, 
and  just  as"  I  would  talk  to  you  by  your  own  fireside,  and 
under  the  sanctity  of  your  own  roof-tree.  I  see  the  race, 
however,  as  I  now  can  plainly  see  the  sky,  with  the  blessed 
sun  shining  in  it. 

EXCELSIOK  SPRINGS,  June  26,  1888. 
Now  what  !  Harrison  and  Morton.  Remember  In- 
diana, and  what  I  told  you  in  my  letter  Saturday  of  the 
situation  there.  It  is  desperate  for  the  Democracy. 
McDonald  is  sulking  in  his  tent  like  Achilles.  And  no 
wonder,  Cleveland  put  the  knife  into  him  in  cold  blood 
and  turned  it  in  the  wound.  Gray  is  a  new  comer.  Still 
on  his  garments  are  the  mud  stains  of  first  republicanism, 
and  next  mugwumpery. 

KANSAS  CITY,  July  9,  1888. 

I  think  that  I  should  at  least  stay  with  you  until  the 
fight  is  fought.  I  have  been  sick  for  a  week — sicker  than 
you  believe,  or  any  man  believes.  Such  is  my  reputa- 
tion that  I  can  not  be  sick  without  being  drunk.  I  have 
had  a  most  painful  and  weakening  dysentery — so  painful 
as  to  prevent  both  eating  and  sleeping.  All  put  together  I 
have  not  drank  a  quart  of  liquor.  Then  I  got  some  good 
brandy  with  laudanum  in  it,  prescribed  by  Dr.  A.  B. 
Sloan.  I  have  touched  nothing  in  four  days  except  this, 
and  there  is  a  third  of  it  left  yet. 

I  have  lost  a  week.  Strike  it  out.  The  end  will  very 
soon  come  in  politics,  after  the  August  convention. 
Then  let  us  close  the  books.  Every  word  you  wrote  to  me 
is  true  to  the  letter.  Each  went  into  my  soul. 

Old  Frederick  the  Great — when  his  fortunes  were  at 
their  very  worst,  and  when  it  was  fellest  and  blackest — 
said  to  a  soldier  running  away,  "How,  now,  comrade?" 
"I  am  deserting  old  Fritz,"  was  the  answer.  "Yon 
can  neither  feed  me,  clothe  me,  nor  give  me  shoes  nor 
shelter."  "  Hold  on  for  one  more  battle,  and  if  the  tide 
does  not  turn,  I  promise  to  desert  with  you." 

We  had  better  remain  together  for  one  more  battle.     I 


56  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

believe  that  I  can  do  you  some  good.  If  I  did  not  think 
so,  and  if  I  did  not  want  to  finally  show  you  that  I  have 
some  gratitude,  I  would  never  enter  the  Times  office  again 
except  to  say  to  you,  ' ( Hail  and  farewell/"  I  know  my 
un  worthiness.  Think  you  not  that  the  iron  has  gone  into 
my  flesh,  cruel  and  corroding? 

As  for  pay,  if  I  had  cared  more  for  it  I  had  surely  done 
better.  But  all  this  in  passing.  I  am  at  work  to-day,  and 
will  send  down  several  articles. 

KANSAS  CITY,  August  17,  1888. 

Dick  Collins  was  married  this  morning  at  eleven 
o'clock,  by  the  Rev.  Father  Lillis,  of  St.  Patrick's  church. 
His  witnesses  were  Col.  John  Longdon,  my  wife,  and 
myself.  I  have  written  his  epithalamium,  or  his  obituary, 
I  do  not  know  which.  His  friendship  has  always  been  so 
true  to  you,  his  devotion  always  so  undeviating  for  you, 
his  courage  always  so  steadfast  for  you,  that  I  ask  as  a 
special  favor  that  you  have  published  in  the  morning  the 
marriage  notice  I  send  you. 

Of  course  all  these  high  qualities  are  now  of  no  longer 
availment,  but  for  all  that  upon  some  graves  there  should 
always  be  monuments. 

KANSAS  CITY,  November  7,  1888. 

As  old  Job  once  said,  or  as  good  as  said,  "  This  is 
hell/'  Recall  what  I  once  wrote  you  from  Excelsior 
Springs  ! 

KANSAS  CITY,  November  8,  1888. 

What  an  overthrow!  Four  Congressmen  gone  from 
Missouri,  and  scant  5,000  plurality  in  the  State  !  As  Pyrr- 
hus  said:  "  Another  such  a  victory  and  I  am  ruined." 

If  you  and  I  had  been  prophets  and  the  sons  of  pro- 
phets we  could  not  more  surely  have  foretold  the  disaster. 
They  see  it  now,  poor  fools — they  who  wanted  to  put  us 
to  death  because  we  pleaded  almost  on  our  knees  for  the 
integrity  of  the  party  of  our  love,  our  religion  and  our 
idolatry. 

Tarsney's  election  is  a  great  card  for  you.  By  con- 
trast it  shows  what  power  the  Times  has  when  it  is  either 
for  or  against. 

I  wish  much  that  I  had  your  philosophy.  The  defeat 
of  Cleveland  actually  made  me  sick. 

Your  special  Kansas  train  was  a  master  piece  of  busi- 
ness. Lord  !  but  how  Kansas  is  joined  to  her  idols.  Let 
the  mortgages  go  on.  One  day  she  will  shrivel  up  in  the 
folds  of  her  eastern  anacondas  as  some  old  garment  in 
flames. 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  57 

For  the  next  month  I  will  show  you  some  of  the  best 
writing  I  have  ever  yet  done.  The  inspiration  of  defeat 
has  lit  all  my  lamps  again. 

KANSAS  CITY,  November,  14,  1888. 

I  was  never  more  surprised  in  my  life  than  when  I  got 
your  letter  of  yesterday,  the  13th,  this  morning. 

I  have  at  this  hour,  and  had  last  night,  not  less  than 
five  columns  of  editorial  matter  on  Mr.  Grasty's  table. 
How  you  could  have  been  mistaken  in  this,  I  am  at  an 
utter  loss  to  understand.  The  articles  you  will  say  your- 
self, are  to  the  point  and  such  as  you  would  have  indorsed 
in  every  line. 

As  for  depending  on  me,  I,  too,  have  re-organized  from 
top  to  bottom,  from  Alpha  to  Omega.  You  say  articles 
ahead  are  not  journalism.  No,  not  political  journalism  ; 
but  every  newspaper  on  earth  has  more  or  less  literary 
matter.  These  are  the  kind  of  articles  which  should  con- 
stitute the  reserve. 

KANSAS  CITY,  November  20,  1888. 

Since  this  is  the  hour  of  reconstruction,  let  me  say  a 
word  or  two  categorically: 

1st.  From  this  day  I  want  you  to  order  every  Missouri 
exchange,  except  St.  Louis,  to  my  especial  keeping.  Have 
them  tied  up  and  put  in  your  room.  I  will  get  them 
every  evening  myself.  Then  I  will  show  you  a  State 
melange  of  which  you  will  be  proud. 

2d.  There  appear  to  be  some  of  my  editorials  which 
are  not  acceptable.  Will  you  please  read  such,  make  a 
two  or  three  line  memorandum  on  the  back  as  to  their 
deficiency,  and  send  them  back  to  me.  In  many  an 
instance  it  will  save  me  much  work.  Especially  where  the 
tariff  is  concerned.  By  hook  and  by  crook  I  have  man- 
aged to  get  hold  of  about  thirty  valuable  works  on  the 
tariff.  To  write  one  single  half-a-column  article  I  have 
sometimes  to  consult  as  many  as  fifteen.  I  have  prided 
myself  on  my  tariff  articles  because  of  their  perfect  accu- 
racy. Even  as  much  of  a  night  owl  as  you  are,  I  am  pour- 
ing over  Adam  Smith,  Beasley,  McAdam,  Granier,  What- 
sook,  etc..  when  you  are  asleep.  I  think  that  all  the  tariff 
books  which  come  to  the  office,  pro  or  con,  you  should 
give  to  me.  I  honed  after  McCulloch's  book.  If  you 
really  mean  for  your  newspaper  to  fight  out  this  fight,  you 
ought  to  supply  my  cartridge-box  when  it  costs  nothing. 

3d.  There  is  an  editorial  on  Carter  Harrison  which 
you  should  permit  to  go  in  by  all  means.  Morry,  this 
miserable  renegade's  attack  upon  Cleveland  was  so  unjust 


58  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

and  cowardly  that  even  stones  on  streets  would  cry  out 
against  it. 

KANSAS  CITY,  February  2,  1889. 

Perhaps  you  will  think  that  I  know  something  about 
foreign  affairs.  I  predicted  Boulanger.  Also,  the  hum- 
buggery  of  Emin  Bey;  also  Stanley's  fanfaronade;  also 
Gladstone's  complete  overthrow;  also  the  impossibility  of 
France  fighting  Italy  over  Tunis;  also  the  impossibility 
of  Italy  making  inroads  into  Abyssinia — and  now,  hear  me 
again:  The  Crown  Prince  of  Austria  committed  suicide* 
He  was  pitiably  married,  he  had  epilepsy,  a  girl  as  beautiful 
as  the  dawn  was  torn  away  from  him,  he  was  a  powerful 
drinker,  he  used  opium  to  excess,  he  scarcely  slept  five 
hours  out  of  twenty-four,  and  what  else  could  come  except 
that  terrible  word — Finis. 

If  you  will  let  me,  I  would  like  to  write  half  a  column 
on  him.  It  is  part  of  the  curse  that  he  should  die.  I  have 
Hungarian  history  open  before  me — the  blackest,  the 
crudest,  the  most  unspairing  ever  recorded — and  I  wonder 
at  nothing  that  now  comes  to  the  Hapsburgs. 


HIS  LAST  LETTER. 

JEFFERSON  CITY,  April  15,  1889. 

My  Dear  Morry:  Frank  Graham  told  me  this  morning 
that  you  had  been  quite  seriously  sick  with  your  old  trouble. 
I  need  not  tell  you  how  grieved  I  was  and  how  unhappy 
it  made  me.  If  it  had  been  John  or  Jim  I  could  not  have 
sorrowed  more.  If  you  should  die  I  would  feel  like  I  was — 

"Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone — 
Alone  on  a  wide,  wide  sea." 

There  are  but  few  men  in  this  world  for  whose  sake  I 
would  be  willing  to  die,  if  nothing  else  but  death  would 
avail.  You  are  one,  Jo.  Shelby  is  another,  there  might  be 
two  or  three  more;  but  these  would  cover  the  category. 
For  God's  sake  take  care  of  yourself.  You  do  not  do  this. 
You  think  that  you  do,  but  there  are  times  when  you  for- 
get yourself  and  undergo  ruinous  exposure.  That  infer- 
nal steam  heat  in  your  room  at  the  office  would  kill  a 
Ganges  crocodile.  You  go  from  it  to  the  open  air — that  is 
to  say  from  a  temperature  of  about  80  degrees  to  one  of 
40.  Victor  Hugo  wrote  that  no  man  could  be  suddenly 
transported  from  Senegal  to  Senegambia  without  losing 
his  reason. 

I  think  the  fight  is  won  here.      It  has    been   hard, 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  59 

unceasing,  and  exhausting.  Everything  is  being  attacked 
—beef,  hogs,  liquor,  telegraphs,  telephones,  express  com- 
panies, stock  yards,  school  text  books — everything.  The 
Democratic  house  is  on  fire  from  cellar  to  garret,  and  not 
a  drop  of  water  nearer  than  that  apochryphal  drop,  which 
Abraham  might  have  commanded,  but  didn't,  to  cool  the 
parched  tongue  of  that  otherwise  apochryphal  gentleman 
called  Mr  Dives. 

In  about  two  years  more,  good-bye.  Democracy.  It 
has  been  a  faithful  old  soul,  God  bless  it !  Upon  a  time 
it  strode  across  the  land  and  giants  sprang  up.  For  a 
blessing  it  knelt  at  the  feet  of  patriotism,  and  when  it 
arose  a  long  line  of  statesmen  had  been  created.  When 
the  Civil  War  came  it  made  all  the  lists  of  it  jubilant  with 
the  clanking  of  its  armor. 

And  now  what? 

Wolf  scalps,  imbecility,  cowardice,  demagogy,  the 
chattering  of  monkeys,  and  the  want  of  daily  washing.  I 

will  be Morry,  if  a  man  can  be  a  good  Democrat  unless 

he  keeps  his  person  clean.  I  am  so  tired.  Just  as  soon 
as  we  can  force  the  fight  here  to  a  final  vote,  I  will  come 
home. 

This  is  a  glorious  April  day.  Such  days  as  these  will 
soon  make  you  as  of  old. 

Your  friend  as  ever, 


*  ^i* 


* 
*       * 


And  now  the  most  difficult  part  of  this  sad  labor  of 
love  is  but  just  begun — to  tell  in  proper  terms  and  fitting 
phrases  of  the  greatness  and  nobleness  of  this  Paladin, 
whose  untimely  ending  brought  so  much  sorrow  to  so 
many  hearts — as  illustrated  through  an  intimate  friend- 
ship of  over  twenty  years.  Within  three  weeks  after  his 
last  letter  I  stood  by  his  open  grave  in  the  village  graveyard 
at  Dover,  and  mingled  my  tears  with  others  that  were  fall- 
ing as  the  earth  was  fast  hiding  all  that  was  mortal  from 
our  sight.  There  was  no  feigned  emotion  on  that  sad  occa- 
sion. The  bronzed  and  grizzled  veterans  who  had  fought 
with  him  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago,  wept  as  freely 
and  felt  as  bereaved  as  his  own  wife  and  children.  Never 
has  earth  closed  upon  mortal  man  more  truly  and  sincerely 


60  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

mourned.  Others  as  brilliant  and  gifted,  have  passed 
away  and  left  a  void  intensified,  it  may  be  by  their  intel- 
lectual gifts,  but  no  man  of  so  rare  and  splendid  genius 
ever  died,  at  whose  grave  these  gifts  were  so  forgotten  in 
sorrow  for  the  nobleness  of  the  man  who  was  their 
possessor  while  alive. 

The  two  most  distinguishing  traits  of  character  in  John 
Edwards,  as  I  knew  him,  were  his  absolute  unselfishness 
and  his  genuine  modesty.  Coupled  with  these,  of  course, 
were  undoubted  courage  and  chivalry,  devotedness  and 
loyalty,  an  unvarying  courtesy  and  cordiality,  that 
wonderful  memory  of  his  which  enabled  him  to  never  for- 
get a  face  or  a  name — all  of  which  endeared  him  to  old 
friends,  and  made  new  ones  of  those  with  whom  he  was 
brought  in  contact.  But  over  and  above,  and  greater  far 
than  all  these,  were  his  pure  and  unalloyed  unselfishness 
and  self-abnegation.  Never  once  in  our  long  and  intimate 
acquaintance  can  I  recall  a  single  instance  in  which  there 
was  the  shadow  of  a  difference  or  variation  when  these 
phases  of  his  character  were  called  into  action.  No  matter 
what  the  time  or  when  the  occasion,  he  was  always  ready 
to  do  and  be  done  for  his  friends.  Regardless  of  money, 
of  personal  comfort  or  convenience,  aye,  of  public  opinion 
and  the  proprieties  he  would  make  any  sacrifice  to  his  own 
detriment,  for  a  friend,  it  mattered  not  how  poor,  how 
humble,  or  even  reviled,  so  John  Edwards  considered  him 
a  friend.  This  may  be  called  devotion,  and  so  it  is,  but 
its  substratum  is  unselfishness. 

And  it  may  be  said  that  this  might  refer  to  notable 
instances  of  a  public  character  in  which  there  was  much 
of  glamour,  and  in  which  the  mock-heroic  could  have  been 
assumed  for  effect.  I  mean  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  am 
thinking  and  writing  of  the  thousands  of  instances,  in 
every  day  life,  under  all  kinds  of  circumstances,  when  I 
have  seen  these  traits  so  fully  tested  and  so  clearly  exem- 
plified— of  how  I  have  seen  him  spend  time,  money,  energy, 
brain  power,  influence,  anything  and  everything,  for  some 
poor  fellow  who  could  not  help  himself,  and  whom  John 
Edwards  supposed  he  ought  to  help  ;  of  how,  in  any  cam- 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  61 

paign,  undertaking  or  journey,  his  personality  or  conven- 
ience was  never  to  be  considered  ;  of  how  he  always  pre- 
ferred and  looked  to  the  comfort  of  others,  whether  patri- 
cians or  plebians,  the  highest  and  most  distinguished,  or 
the  lowest  and  most  forsaken — in  short,  of  how  he  seemed 
always  to  want  to  take  the  fi  smallest  half  "  of  everything, 
to  think  of  everybody  except  himself,  not  humbly  or 
ignobly,  but  naturally  and  with  an  unassumed  grace,  I 
have  never  seen  in  any  other  mortal  man.  Often  I  have 
said  to  myself:  It  was  born  in  him,  and  he  can  not  help  it. 

If  there  was  aught  of  self-pride  or  egotism  in  John 
Edwards,  the  world  never  knew  it,  nor  did  his  most  inti- 
mate friends.  For  twenty  years  he  was  recognized  and 
acknowledged  as  the  most  gifted  writer  in  the  West.  No 
matter  on  what  newspaper  he  was  engaged,  his  brilliant 
pen  soon  made  for  itself  a  place  and  an  individuality  that 
were  known  far  and  wide.  Nearly  all  of  this  time  he  was 
one  of  the  most  prominent  figures  and  potent  factors  in 
Missouri  politics.  He  entered  heart  and  soul  into  every 
campaign,  first  for  his  friends  and  always  for  his  party. 
And  yet  during  these  twenty  years,  with  the  fierce  light  of 
political  antagonism  and  professional  rivalry  shining  upon 
him,  no  living  man  can  point  to  one  instance  in  which  by 
word  or  deed  John  Edwards  ever  preferred  or  exalted  him- 
self, or  ever  showed  that  he  was  conscious  that  he  was  the 
gifted  son  of  genius,  which  everyone  else  knew  except 
himself.  Personal  adulation  and  praise,  especially  of  his 
writing,  seemed  always  to  be  absolutely  painful,  and  hun- 
dreds of  times  have  I  seen  him  adroitly  turn  the  drift  of 
such  conversation  into  other  channels.  His  relations  with 
his  newspaper  associates  seem  to  have  been  of  the  same 
kind  as  those  with  his  army  associates.  All  recognized  his 
overshadowing  ability  but  in  no  breast  was  there  ever  the 
tinge  of  envy.  He  was  the  equal,  the  friend,  the  helper  of 
every  man  on  the  staff  from  reporter  to  proprietor,  from 
private  to  general.  And  never  once  in  army,  in  journalism, 
in  politics,  was  he  known  to  ask  preferment  or  seek  to  be 
advanced. 

More  than  all  this.,  he  was  an  author — a  writer  of  books. 


62  JOHN  NEWilAX  EDV»*AIIDS. 

Two  of  his  volumes,  "Shelby  and  his  Men, "and  "Shelby's 
Expedition  to  Mexico"  relate  entirely  to  events  and  occur- 
rences in  which  John  Edwards  was  an  only  less  prominent 
participant  than  the  commander  himself.  He  was  General 
Shelby's  adjutant-general,  and  held  the  same  relation  to 
him  that  Rawlms  did  to  General  Grant.  It  is  no  detrac- 
tion from  the  established  fame  of  General  Shelby  or  of  any 
officer  who  served  under  him  to  say  that  during  all  those 
days  John  Edwards  was  much  more  than  his  title  implied,  a 
mere  adjutant-general — that  in  fact  he  was  more  to  Shelby 
than  any  captain,  any  colonel,  any  brigadier-general — that 
he  was  always  at  the  war  councils,  and  that  his  judgment 
outweighed  them  all.  These  volumes  of  John  Edwards 
wrere  written  to  perpetuate  the  deeds  and  glory  of  Shelby's 
command  during  the  war,  and  to  tell  of  the  romantic 
march  of  the  five  hundred  indomitables  to  Mexico  after  its 
close.  And  yet  in  neither  of  these  volumes,  "  Shelby 
and  his  Men,"  and  "  Shelby's  Expedition  to  Mexico," 
does  the  name  of  the  author  John  N.  Edwards, 
appear  except  on  the  title  pages  and  in  official  orders!  I 
challenge  the  rounds  of  history,  biography,  memoirs, 
recollections  and  what  not,  to  instance  a  parallel!  Privates, 
corporals,  sergeants,  lieutenants,  captains,  quartermasters, 
commissaries,  colonels,  generals,  all — every  one  of  them 
almost — are  given  a  place  in  the  only  history  that  could 
perpetuate  their  names  and  their  fame.  But  the  name  of 
the  author  and  the  master  spirit  and  what  he  did  is  never 
once  intruded.  I  have  asked  myself  time  and  again  why 
does  this  man  so  abnegate  himself,  and  I  often  tried  to  draw 
him  out  on  the  subject.  His  unvarying  answer  was  that 
he  had  almost  the  horror  of  seeing  his  name  in  print  as  he 
would  have  of  facing  hydrophobia.  His  actions  through- 
out years  corroborated  this  statement.  No  journalist  in 
Missouri  ever  received  from  his  brethren  of  the  press  so  many 
laudatory  and  eulogistic  notices.  But  while  inwardly  he 
no  doubt  appreciated  them,  he  never  by  word  or  deed  or 
look  gave  evidence  of  that  fact.  He  did  not  preserve 
them — he  never  kept  a  scrap  book.  Next  to  army 
experience,  camping,  marching,  messmating,  and  fight- 


TWENTY  YEARS  OF  FRIENDSHIP.  63 

ing,  there  is  no  better  crucible  in  which  to  test  a  man  than 
in  the  active  brain  shop  of  a  metropolitan  newspaper. 
There  obtains  in  the  latter  an  esprit  de  corps  that 
is  surpassed  nowhere  except,  perhaps,  in  a  well  organized 
and  drilled  military  troop  in  active  service.  There  can 
be  no  loafers  or  laggards  in  either  corps.  A  man  is  soon 
"sized  up"  and  rated  for  what  he  is  worth.  John  Edwards 
has  been  ' '  sized  up  "  in  both  of  these  professions.  Ask  any 
of  his  old  army  comrades — all  of  them — and  there  isbut  one 
reply  :  ( '  He  was  the  truest,  the  bravest  among  the  brave, 
and  withal  the  most  modest  and  unselfish."  So,  also, 
would  be  the  verdict  of  his  newspaper  friends,  and 
especially  those  with  whom  he  was  last  associated  ;  he  was 
true  always  to  his  convictions,  whether  right  or  wrong — 
that  he  was  brave  goes  without  saying — that  he  was 
modest  and  unselfish,  there  is  an  avalanche  of  testimony. 
I  shall  add  to  these  notes  neither  analysis  nor  pane- 
gyric which  I  leave  to  other  but  not  more  devoted  friends. 
I  have  felt  that  no  pen  but  his  own  could  do  full  justice 
to  such  a  character  as  that  of  John  N.  Edwards.  To  us 
who  were  for  so  many  years  his  daily  companions;  who 
have  experienced  the  loyalty  of  his  friendship,  the  inef- 
fable charm  of  his  personality,  and  the  masterful  force  of 
his  genius,  the  loss  is  a  bitter  one,  and  words  die  upon  the 
lips  as  we  look  into  this  open  grave.  Thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  share  the  bereavement  who  also  shared  his 
loving  kindness  and  charity — his  daily  practice  of  the 
sentiment: 

'  In  men  whom  men  condemn  as  ill, 
I  find  so  much  of  goodness  still; 
In  men  whom  men  pronounce  divine, 
I  see  so  much  of  sin  and  blot, 
I  hesitate  to  draw  a  line, 
Between  the  two  where  God  has  not." 

The  life  which  closed  with  the  death  of  John  Edwards 
grows  no  less  beautiful  and  admirable  as  we  realize  that 
he  has  gone  from  us.  He  has  left  imperishable  memen- 
toes through  which  he  will  live  wherever  human  hearts 
beat  to  generous  emotions.  But  far  the  most  cherished 


64  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

recollections  will  be  those  of  his  personal  friends,  those 
who  knew  how  genuine  were  his  qualities,  how  warm  and 
tender  and  true  he  was  back  of  the  genius  which  flashed 
through  his  pages. 

These  lines  from  Pope  might  serve  as  a  fitting  epi- 
taph:— 

" — Friend  to  truth,  of  soul  sincere, 
In  action  faithful,  and  in  honor  clear; 
Who  broke  no  promise,  served  no  private  end, 
Who  gained  no  title,  and  who  lost  no  friend." 

KANSAS  CITY,  June  8, 1889. 


WRITINGS  OF  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 


"  POOR  CARLOTTA." 

[From  the  Kansas  City  Times,  May  29,  1870.] 

DISPATCHES  from  Europe  say  that  the  ^  malady  is  at  its  worst, 
and  that  the  young  widow  of  Maximilian  is  near  her  death  hour. 
Ah  !  when  the  grim  king  does  come,  he  will  bring  to  her  a  blessing 
and  a  benediction.  The  beautiful  brown  eyes  have  been  lusterless 
these  many  months  ;  the  tresses  of  .her  sunny  hair  have  long  ago 
been  scorched  with  fever  and  pain  ,  the  beautiful  and  brave  young 
Spartan,  rich  in  energy,  in  love,  in  passionate  devotion,  knows  no 
more  the  roses  and  lawns  of  Miramar  ;  the  Mediterranean  brings  no 
more  from  over  perilous  seas  the  silken  pennon  of  her  fair-haired 
royal  sailor  lover.  It  is  quiet  about  Lacken,  where  the  Empress  lays 
a-dying  ;  but  Time  will  never  see  such  another  woman  die  until  the 
whole  world  dies. 

It  is  not  much  to  die  in  one's  own  bed,  peaceful  of  conscience 
and  weary  of  child-bearing.  The  naked  age  is  crowded  thick  with 
little  loves,  and  rose-water-lines,  and  the  pink  and  the  white  of  the 
bridal  toilettes.  Here  is  a  queen  now  in  extremity,  who  reigned  in 
the  tropics,  and  whose  fate  has  over  it  the  lurid  grandeur  of  a  vol- 
cano. A  sweet  Catholic  school-girl  she  was  when  the  Austrian 
came  a-wooing,  with  a  ship  of  the  line  for  chariot.  She  played 
musical  iostruments;  she  had  painted  rare  pictures  of  Helen,  and 
Omphale  in  the  arms  of  Hercules,  and  Jeanne  d'Arc  with  the  yel- 
low hair,  and  the  pensive  Roland — her  of  the  Norrran  face — over 
whose  black  doom  there  still  flits  a  ruddy  fervor,  streaks  of  bright 
Southern  tint,  not  wholly  swallowed  up  of  death.  Yes  !  it  was  a 
love-match,  rare  if  king-craft  and  court  cunning.  Old  Leopold's 
daughter  married  with  the  flags  of  three  nations  waving  over  her, 
amid  the  roar  of  artillery  and  the  broadsides  of  battle-ships.  The 
sea  gave  its  sapphire  bloom  and  the  skies  their  benison.  Afar  off 
French  eagles  were  seen,  alas  !  to  shadow  all  the  life  of  the  bride 
with  the^ blood  of  the  husband.  The  nineteenth  century  witnessed 
the  heroic  epic  which  darkened  to  such  a  tragedy.  She  came  to 
Mexico,  bringing  in  her  gentle  hands  two  milk-white  doves,  as  it 
were.  Charity  and  Religion. 

Pure  as  all  women;  stainless  as  an  angel-guarded  child;  proud 
as  Edith  of  the  swan's  neck;  beautiful;  a  queen  of  all  hearts  where 
honor  dwelt;  mistress  of  the  realms  of  music;  rare  in  the  embroid- 
ery she  wove;  having  time  for  literature  and  letters;  sensuous  only 
in  the  melody  of  her  voice;  never  a  mother — it  was  as  though  God 
had  sent  an  angel  of  light  to  redeem  a  barbaric  race  and  sanctify  a 
degraded  people.  How  she  tried  and  how  she  suffered,  let  the  fever 
which  is  burning  her  up  alive  give  answer.  It  is  not  often  that  the 
world  looks  upon  such  a  death-bed.  Yet  in  the  rosy  and  radiant 
toils  of  the  honeymoon,  a  bride  came  to  govern  an  empire  where 

65 


66  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

armies  did  her  bidding,  and  French  Marshals,  scarred  at  Inkermann 
and  Solferiuo,  kissed  with  loyal  lips  her  jeweled  hand  and  mur- 
mured through  their  gray  moustaches  words  of  soldierly  truth  and 
valor.  Siie  sate  herself  down  in  the  palace  of  the  Montezumas  and 
looked  our  amid  the  old  elms  where  Cortez's  swart  cavaliers  had 
made  love  in  the  moonlight,  their  blades  not  dry  with  blood  of  the 
morning's  battle;  upon  Chepultepec,  that  had  seen  the  cold  glitter 
of  American  steel  and  the  gleam  of  defiant  battle  flags;  upon  the 
Alernada  where  Alvarado  look  the  Indian  maiden  to  kiss,  who 
drove  the  steel  straight  for  his  heart,  and  missed,  and  found  a  surer 
lodgment  in  her  own. 

All  these  were  bridal  gifts  to  the  Austrian's  bride — the  brown- 
eyed,  beautiful  Carlota.  Noble  white  vision  in  a  land  of  red  har- 
lots, with  soft,  pitying,  queenly  face ;  hair  flowing  down  to  the 
girdle,  and  as  true  a  heart  as  ever  beat  in  woman's  bosom.  As  a 
Grecian  statue,  serenely  complete,  she  shines  out  in  that  black  wreck 
of  things  a  star. 

It  c  ime  suddenly,  that  death  of  her  lover  and  her  husband.  It 
dared  not  draw  near  when  the  French  eagles  flew,  but  afterward  what 
a  fate  for  one  so  royal  and  so  brave.  God  shielded  the  tried  heart 
from  the  blow  of  his  last  words,  for  they  were  so  tender  as  to  carry 
a  sorrow  they  could  not  heal.  "Poor  Carlota!"  Youth,  health, 
reason,  crown,  throne,  empire,  armies,  husband,  all  gone.  Why 
should  the  fates  be  so  pitiless  and  so  unsparing? 

Some  where  in  eternity  within  some  golden  palace  walls,  where 
old  imperial  banners  float,  and  Launcelots  keep  guard,  and  Arthurs 
reign,  and  all  the  patriot  heroes  dwell,  her  Maximilian  is  waiting  for 
his  bride.  Long  ago  that  spotless  soul  has  been  there.  Let  death 
come  quickly  and  take  the  body,  and  end  its  misery  and  subdue  its 
pain.  All  that  is  immortal  of  Carlota  is  with  her  husband.  The 
tragedy  is  nearly  over.  In  an  age  of  iron  and  steam  and  armies 
and  a  world  at  peace,  it  remained^for  a  woman  to  teach  nations  how 
an  empress  loves  and  dies.  Who  shall  dare  to  say  hereafter  there 
is  nothing  in  blood  or  birth  ?  What  gentle  sister,  in  the  struggle 
and  turmoil  of  life,  will  look  away  from  that  death-bed  in  Lacken 
Castle,  and  not  bless  God  for  being  a  woman  and  of  the  sex  of  her 
who  is  dying  for  her  king  and  her  empire?  Sleep!  the  angels  have  no 
need  of  sleep.  Nothing  suffices  love.  Having  h^piness,  one  wishes 
for  Paradise;  having  Paradise,  one  wishes  for  Heaven.  There  is  a 
starry  transfiguration  mingled  with  her  crucifixion.  The  crown  is 
almost  hers,  and  in  the  beautiful  garden  of  souls  she  will  find  once 
more  the  monarch  of  her  youth. 

A  STRANGER  IN  A  STRANGE  LAND. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  26, 1872.] 

It  seems  so  strange  that  the  hands  of  poetry  should  be  laid  upon 
perishable  things.  Heir  of  immortality  itself,  its  offspring  also 
should  be  immortal,  having  no  stain  of  earth,  no  link  that  rusts,  no 
flower  that  fades,  no  stream  that  runs  dry,  no  passion  that  con- 
sumes, no  sun  that  is  obscured,  no  morning  without  its  dawn,  and 
no  sky  without  its  rainbow  and  its  twilight.  The  picture  that  it 
calls  into  life,  the  book  that  it  makes  beautiful,  the  idea  that  it 
etherializes,  the  field  that  it  decorates,  the  warrior  that  it  ennobles, 
the  woman  that  it  makes  angelic — all,  all  should  live  only  in  the 
atmosphere  that  surrounded  their  creation,  in  the  memories  the  poem 
made  impervious  to  time  or  the  rough  current  of  real  and  practical 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  67 

things.  Fancy  has  its  own  imperial  caste,  and  surrenders  but  too 
sorrowfully  its  precious  and  adored  deceits.  There  are  too  many 
lattice  bars  against  which  its  wings  beat  in  vain,  and  too  many  false 
and  luring  lights  in  the  windows  of  its  hope's  first  affluence — in  the 
color  and  charm  of  its  day-dreams  and  its  visions. 

It  can  do  no  good — however  sternly  inexorable  thelogic  of  to-day 
may  be — to  make  the  Cleopatra  of  our  youth  forty-two  and  cross- 
eyed when  Anthony  lost  Actuim  for  her  own  sweet  sake.  It  can  do 
no  good  to  doubt  the  story  of  the  asp,  and  deny  the  half-human, 
half-panther  instinct  which,  cruel  to  the  last,  forgave  not  the  losing 
of  the  battle,  nor  the  deep  sword-thrust  that  was  sterner  proof  of 
Roman  love  than  the  starkest  blow  ever  struck  by  legionary  or 
Egyptian.  Why  deny  that  when  the  long,  voluptuous  dance  was 
done — a  dance  dreamily  danced  in  the  odor  of  frankincense  and  the 
balm  of  myrrh — that  the  full,  pouting  lips  of  the  beautiful  Hero- 
dias  made  no  pleading  prayer  for  an  august  head  laureled  with 
God's  benediction  ?  It  brings  no  peace  to  any  dreamer's  dream  to 
know  that  the  deft  fingers  which  wove  the  web  of  long  deceit  and 
broken  promise  were  gaunt  and  wrinkled,  and  that  the  good  king, 
in  the  ceaseless  clatter  of  Penelope's  shrewish  tongue,  longed  for 
the  blue  sweep  of  the  seas  running  shoreward,  for  the  wines  of  the 
nymphs — the  Bacchanal  court,  and  the  sweet,  long  loves  -of  the 
Queen  Calypso. 

And  now  the  once  fair  "Maid  of  Athens  "  lies  a-dying,  old, 
withered,  abandoned  of  the  world  and  forgotten  altogether.  The 
wife  of  an  English  consul  in  Greece,  Byron  met  her,  loved  her  for 
a  month  and  a  day,  sung  of  her,  and  sailed  away.  The  song  did 
not  die — will  not  die.  It  was  passionate  and  beautiful.  Many  re- 
member it;  many  remember  some  voice  that  has  lingered  over  it — 
some  night  when  it  dwelt  in  the  memory  as  a  star  lives  in  the  sky — 
some  intonation  that  had  a  meaning  as  sweet  as  it  was  hidden. 

"  Maid  of  Athens,  ere  we  part, 
Give,  oh  !  give  me  back  my  heart.1' 

She  was  beautiful  then.  The  black  hair  was  long  and  lustrous; 
her  eyes  that  unfathomable  hue  born  of  a  moment's  pleasure  or  pas- 
sion; her  form  the  lithe,  superb  motion  Byron's  heroines  always 
had,  her  voice  softly  musical  and  tuned  to  the  old  Italian  airs  he 
loved  so  dearly.  The  fancy  pleased  him  passing  well,  but  no  sin 
came  of  it  all,  and  over  against  his  name — when  the  inexorable  angel 
has  made  up  the  records  of  the  world — there  will  be  written  naught 
of  a  folly  that  could  darken  the  frown  even  on  the  unforgiving  face 
of  his  uncharitable  and  unsympathetic  wife. 

And  to-day  the  Maid  of  Athens,  forgotten  of  the  world,  lies  old, 
withered,  helpless,  waiting  for  death  in  sight  of  the  blue  waves  that 
went  out  with  her  life's  first  romance  and  her  poet  lover.  It  is  well, 
perhaps,  that  time  kneels  at  no  shrine  and  passes  no  heads  by 
untinged  of  gray  and  unshorn  of  laurels.  He  would  linger,  else,  too 
long  for  hearts  that  are  breaking  and  weariness  that  would  be  at 
rest.  The  grave  alone  is  sacred  ground.  Its  confines  mark  the 
limit  of  finite  beauty  and  bloom,  and  no  matter  how  sweet  the  song 
that  pours  its  fragrance  out,  nor  how  adored  the  idol  lifted  up  in  the 
placid  past  of  youth  and  .joyous  retrospect,  it  were  better  that  time 
shrouded  and  shattered  all,  than,  like  the  wisest  and  best  of  human- 
ity, it  knelt  at  the  feet  of  some  alluring  fancy — worshiped  beneath 
the  rays  of  some  imperial  beauty  that  had  even  Byron  for  votary  or 
voluptuary. 

And  death  should  come  quickly  to  her  whose  face  is  a  picture 


68  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

yet  in  the  pensive  glow  and  glory  of  its  Norman  setting — come  in 
with  the  tide  bearing  swift  ships  from  her  native  England — bearing 
voices  that  sing  the  sweet  songs  of  him  who  knew  and  loved  the 
Maid  of  Athens  a  long  half  century  ago. 

PILOT,  WHAT  OF  THE  SHIP? 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  26,  1872]. 

In  the  ceaseless  drift  and  change  of  things,  not  many  eyes  have 
watched  and  not  many  hearts  have  listened  for  tidings  from  the 
good  ship  Polaris,  going  on  grandly  into  the  night  of  an  unknown 
ocean.  From  out  the  gloom  and  the  silence  of  the  frozen  wilder- 
ness no  words  have  come  back  of  good  cheer  or  safety,  and  it  may 
be  that  the  hearts  which  beat  bravest  when  the  vessel  sailed,  and  the 
voices  that  were  blithest  and  gayest,  will  beat  never  more  and  sing 
never  again  till  the  waters  of  the  world  have  passed  away  for- 
ever. 

Yet  the  ocean  loves  its  offspring — loves  with  a  love  beyond  the 
land;  those  who  tempt  perilous  things  and  live  heroic  lives,  face  to 
face  with  the  fates  of  the  storm  and  the  harpies  of  the  lee  shore  and 
the  wreck.  And  who  knows  how  much  of  this  strange  pity  may  go 
to  color  the  web  of  Hall's  deathless  adventure,  and  weave  into  its 
warp  and  woof  stray  streaks  of  arctic  sunshine,  not  wholly  swallowed 
up  of  the  midnight  and  the  glacier. 

It  was  summer  when  the  Polaris  sailed,  the  scent  of  many 
flowers  in  the  land  breeze  and  the  voices  of  many  birds  in  the  trees. 
All  nature  held  out  pleading  hands — a  mute  protest  of  odor,  and 
bloom,  and  the  singing  of  happy  waters,  and  the  glad  and  green- 
growing  things  on  the  upland  and  meadow.  Autumn  came,  and 
winter,  and  now  the  spring  again,  with  blessing  of  blossom  and 
promise  of  fruit,  and  soon  with  the  summer  once  more  a  year  will 
have  gone.  One  year,  and  not  a  word  from  this  American  vessel, 
with  her  American  crew,  bearing  American  hearts  that  have  prom- 
ised to  find  the  Open  Sea,  or  perish. 

The  nation  has  not  forgotten  them.  There  maybe  some,  per- 
haps, too  many,  who  have  only  a  sneer  for  the  brave  endeavor,  '  id 
onlya  faith  mils  folly  and  failure,  but  the  great  sympathetic  un ...  r- 
current  of  the  land  is  with  the  mariners,  praying  right  on  that  the 
Northern  Ocean  may  give  up  its  secrets — that  favoring  winds  may 
bear  them  back  safely  to  their  own  again.  How  speeds  the  ship 
and  how  fares  the  crew,  the  waves  have  not  told,  nor  any  voice  yet 
heard  in  the  homes  of  the  absent.  What  form  death  took  in  clam- 
bering over  the  bulwarks,  if  death  came  at  all,  and  what  rites  were 
said  in  the  face  of  the  wondering  midnight,  not  any  messenger  has 
yet  returned  bearing  aught  of  record  or  tidings.  Perhaps  all  is  well. 
Terror  and  night  and  the  unknown  are  all  in  league  with  the 
spirits  who  sentinel  the  Open  Sea— grim  watchers  at  the  uttermost 
gates  of  the  world — but  even  now  the  mists  may  have  been  rolled 
back  from  before  the  longing  eyes,  letting  in  visions  of  waves  that 
sleep  in- a  tranquil  summer  sunshine— visions  of  islands  green  with 
palms  and  fringed  in  scented  and  odorous  things.  Who  knows?  So 
Franklin  believed  and  died.  So  Kane  prophesied  and  passed 
away.  And  so  Hall  did  write  but  one  short  year  ago,  when  he 
gave  his  fate  to  the  ocean  and  his  family  to  science  and  his  country. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  69 

CJUANTRELL. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  12, 1372.] 

As  the  glorification  of  living  and  dead  guerrillas  seems  now  to 
be  the  order  of  the  day,  a  few  words  as  to  the  character  of  this,  the 
king  of  guerrillas,  may  not  be  amiss.  Since  Mosby's  recent  inter- 
view with  General  Grant,  the  Radical  papers  declare  that  his  sins, 
though  as  scarlet,  shall  be  made  white  as  snow.  No  good  reason, 
therefore,  exists  why  the  truth  shall  not  be  told  of  one  who,  brave 
and  steadfast  to  the  end,  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  fearless  Ishmaeliie. 

Richardson,  whom  McFarland  killed,  wrote  once  in  a  letter 
from  Denver  city  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  of  Billy  West,  a  noted 
border  man,  as  "the  swarthy  Adonis  of  the  Plains."  Carrying 
forward  the  simile,  Quantreirmight  be  likened  unto  a  blonde  Apollo 
of  the  prairies.  His  eyes  were  very  blue,  soft  and  winning. 
Peculiar  they  were  in  this,  that  they  never  were  in  rest.  Looking 
at  the  face,  one  might  say  there  is  the  face  of  a  student.  It  was 
calm,  serene,  going  oftener  to  pallor  than  to  laughter.  It  may  be 
that  he  liked  to  hear  the  birds  sing,  for  hours  and  hours  he  would 
linger  in  the  woods  alone.  His  hands  were  small  and  perfectly 
molded.  Who  could  tell  in  looking  at  them  that  they  were  the 
most  deadly  hands  with  a  revolver  in  all  the  border.  Perhaps  no 
man  ever  had  more  complete  mastery  over  a  horse  than  Quantrell, 
and  whether  at  a  furious  gallop  or  under  the  simple  swing  of  the 
route  step,  he  could  lean  from  the  saddle  and  snatch  a  pebble  from 
the  ground. 

Anderson  was  a  tiger  let  loose ;  Quaatrell  was  a  tiger  too, 
that  had  the  innocence  of  a  lamb.  Nature  loves  to  group  the  gro- 
tesque. Hence  all  the  smiles  his  features  had  on  when  his  pitiless 
lips  pronounced  the  death  sentence.  Todd  mingled  no  melody 
with  his  murders ;  Quantrell  was  heard  to  sing  little  snatches 
of  song  as  the  gray  smoke  rolled  away  from  his  pistol.  Mosby 
delighted  in  surprises  and  disguises  ;  Quantrell  published  his  name 
broadcast  when  the  mood  was  on  him,  and  blazed  it  along  the 
route  of  his  travels  as  if  it  were  a  cloud  to  cover  him.  He  was 
unlike  them  all,  just  as  he  was  greater  than  them  all. 

It  is  instructive  sometimes  to  study  the  pictures  the  war  painted. 
No  nation  furnishes  a  counterpart  for  guerrillas  such  as  ours,  except 
Spain.  France  had  a  few,  but  women  tempted  them  and  they  were 
trapped  and  slain.  These  Missourians  loved  women,  but  the  love 
lasted  not  beyond  the  bivouac.  In  the  morning  each  heart  was  all 
iron.  What  instructs  one  in  the  contemplation  of  such  characters, 
is  their  intense  individuality.  Horrified  at  their  ferocity,  one  yet 
delights  to  analyze  their  organization.  If  there  is  a  race  born  with- 
out fear,  Quantrell  belonged  to  it.  He  loved  life,  and  yet  he  did  not 
value  it.  Perhaps  this  is  why  it  was  so  hard  to  lose  it.  In  his  war- 
life,  which  was  one  long,  long,  merciless  crusade,  he  exhibited  all 
the  qualities  of  cunning,  skill,  nerve,  daring,  physical  endurance, 
remorseless  cruelty,  abounding  humor,  insatiable  revenge,  a  cour- 
age that  was  sometimes  cautious  to  excess  and  sometimes  desperate 
to  temerity.  In  the  midst  of  a  band  who  knew  no  law  but  the  re- 
volver, his  slightest  wish  was  anticipated  and  obeyed.  Hence  his 
power  to  command  was  unquestioned.  Recognizing  no  flag  but  the 
black  flag,  he  sat  as  quietly  down  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile  country 
as  the  foes  who  were  on  his  track  ;  and  having  shaken  hands  with 
death,  he  thought  no  more  of  the  word  surrender.  If  he  believed 
in  God,  he  denied  the  special  providences  of  heaven,  and  stabled 


70  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWAKDS. 

his  horses  in  a  church  as  well  as  in  a  stall.  Without  knowing  the 
ghastly  irony  of  it,  perhaps,  he  was  often  heard  to  offer  up  a  prayer 
for  a  victim. 

It  is  useless  to  declare  that  these  kind  of  characters  do  not 
attract.  All  Paris  came  to  see  Cartouche  hung,  and  yet  Cartouche 
was  only  a  robber.  But  then  his  little  child  was  suspended  on  the 
same  scaffold.  In  the  arsenal  at  Jefferson  City  is  a  picture  of  Bill 
Anderson,  taken  after  death.  The  clear-cut  face  is  ghastly  pale  A 
white,  mute,  appealing  look  is  on  the  tense,  drawn  features.  Dead 
leaves  and  sand  are  in  the  long  yellow  hair  and  tawny  beard.  For 
hours  women  gather  about  this  picture  and  babble  of  balls  and 
revels  and  dances  and  battles,  and  ever  and  ever  come  back  to  the 
white,  set  face  and  the  wa'n,  mute  features.  ISo  visitor  goes  away 
without  seeing  it,  and  thinking  of  it  for  many  a  day  thereafter. 

No  nation  equals  in  individuality  the  American.  Her  people 
possess  all  the  elements  to  make  the  finest  soldiers  on  earth.  Keen, 
desperate,  enduring,  insatiate  for  the  excitement  of  active  conflict, 
and  readily  hardened  into  reckless  butchers,  they  make  conscience 
subsidiary  to  slaughter,  and  accept  the  fortunes  of  a  struggle  with  a 
fatalism  that  is  Oriental.  As  a  perfect  type  of  this,  Quantrell  will 
live  as  a  model.  Sooner  or  later  he  knew  death  would  come,  and  so 
he  forgot  him.  Meanwhile  his  killing  went  on,  and  his  exploits 
filled  a  historic  page  of  the  gigantic  contest. 

This  California  paper  is  too  far  away  to  know  the  truth  of  his 
last  battle's  ending.  The  curious  can  find  his  grave  if  they  will  look 
for  it  in  Kentucky,  deep  enough  to  keep  him  till  the  judgment  day. 
Bloodier  and  crueller  than  Mosby,  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  wor- 
shiped by  a  few,  loved  by  many,  and  abhorred  of  half  the  nation. 

THOMAS  BUCHANAN  READ. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  12, 187,?.] 

The  dead  poet  and  painter — American  and  therefore  sectional — 
has  gone  to  his  grave  before  it  was  yet  springtime  on  all  the  ways 
and  the  woods  of  his  lordly  west.  The  bloom  of  the  lilacs  had 
faded,  and  the  white  tentsof  the  dogwoods  had  been  pitched  beyond 
the  green  of  the  swelling  uplands,  but  there  was  something  the'May 
days  wanted — some  fullness  of  sap  in  the  maple-trees,  some  softer 
music  in  the  hush  that  lingered  by  the  edges  of  the  running  water, 
some  rarer  radiance  in  the  hues  th  at  made  the  gold  and  crimson  o  f  the 
sunset  skies.  And  if  he  could  have  waited  yet  a  little  while — waited 
until  the  gentler  spring  and  the  softer  summer  took  hands  in  the 
laughing  weather — their  blended  lives  having  only  the  roses  as  a 
stream  between  them — heaven  might  have  seemed  nearer,  and  fairer 
and  closer  to  the  reach  of  the  hands  that  will  never  touch  pencil  or 
pen  again  this  side  eternity. 

He  was  not  a  great  poet,  nor  will  America  ever  produce  one 
until  all  sectional  lines  are  broken  down  and  all  sectional  passions 
obliterated.  The  realms  of  poetry  are  nature's  own,  bounded  by  the 
blue  skies,  the  fields,  the  flowers,  the  lessons  that  humanity  teaches, 
the  songs  thatryhthm  make  musical,  the  pictures  that  art  adorns,  the 
yearnings  that  fancy  interprets,  the  mortality  that  imagination 
glorifies  and  redeems.  Wars  send  abroad  over  the  land  stern  battle 
lyrics  that  bear  in  their  ringing  cadence  the  sound  of  sudden  sword- 
blades,  and  the  dim,  nebulous  swing  of  burnished  bayonets,  but 
they  are  foreign  wars,  waged  when  a  nation's  life  it  at  hazard  or  a 
nation's  honor  at  stake.  Read  sang  of  a  soldier  whose  morning 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  71 

was  clouded  by  doubtful  fame,  and  whose  evening  had  over  it  the 
baleful  light  of  rapine  and  slaughter.  No  matter,  he  eame  to  laurel 
Sheridan  and  he  did  it,  in  that  desolate  valley  by  Winchester  town, 
after  the  conflict  was  done  and  the  glory  awarded.  History,  how- 
ever, rejecting  the  sonorous  swell  of  the  picturesque  ride,  lays  its 
inexorable  tribute  at  the  feet  of  Wright,  unsung  and  unknown 
though  he  be  in  the  numbers  of  the  poet.  Truth,  the  terrible  logi- 
cian, halts  never  a  moment  for  a  smiJe  from  the  "  sweetest  lips  that 
ever  were  kissed  " — for  a  verse  from  the  sweetest  song  that  ever  was 
sung.  In  the  mills  of  the  critics  where  the  grinding  is  done,  that 
which  is  false  is  crushed  with  its  rhetoric,  and  that  which  is  true  is 
redeemed  with  its  glory  and  its  gold. 

No  matter  again,  he  believed  in  his  hero,  and  faith  with  a  poet 
is  religion.  Somewhere  in  the  islands  of  the  blest — somewhere  be- 
yond the  sunset  shore  he  will  find  the  old,  glad  days  of  his  Italian 
weather  again.  There  must  be  an  Italy  in  heaven,  or  the  world 
would  send  thither  none  like  Byron,  nor  Shelley,  nor  Keats,  nor  De 
Musset,  nor  Scott,  nor  the  boy  Chatterton,  nor  the  woman  Brown- 
ing, sweet  in  royal  singer  fashion,  the  purest,  fairest,  saddest  Eng- 
lish Bird  of  Paradise  who  ever,  swan-like,  sang  and  died." 

JAMES  GORDON  BENNETT. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  June  8, 1872.1 

The  telegraph  brings  the  news  that  this  aged  and  war-worn  editor 
is  near  his  death  hour — that  even  now  he  may  have  passed  over  the 
river  to  rest  under  the  shade  of  the  trees.  About  the  death  of  any 
Paladin  there  is  always  something  of  solemn  import,  something 
that  attracts,  even  while  it  terrifies.  No  matter  how  the  life  had 
been,  no  matter  whether  the  prowess  that  lifted  him  up  a  giant 
among  his  fellows  was  the  prowess  that  the  pirate  has,  that  the  Free 
Lance  boasts  who  fights  for  gold  or  for  beauty,  that  the  Christian 
owns  who  dares  the  Syrian  night  winds — it  is  the  last,  last  act  alone 
of  the  tragedy  called  existence  which  fascinates  those  who  gaze  in 
upon  the  struggle.  There  is  the  standard  lifted  up  on  some  perilous 
day,  torn  now~and  bloody;  there  is  the  good  sword  too  heavy  for 
the  weak  hands  that  will  never  use  steel  again  ;  there  are  the  hau- 
berk and. shield,  dinted  by  many  a  blow  and  cleft  by  many  a  battJe- 
stroke  ;  and  there,  too,  it  may  be,  faded  and  soiled,  is  what  the  world 
knew  not,  a  little  glove  or  bunch  of  ribbon,  telling  the  old,  old  story 
of  how,  in  the  stern,  unpitying  hearfthere  was  a  memory  that  all 
the  desolating  work  of  rapine  and  slaughter  could  not  banish  or 
obliterate. 

James  Gordon  Bennett  came  to  America  a  rugged  Scotch  boy,  to 
whom  the  world  owed  a  living.  Alone,  friendless,  penniless,  who 
can  doubt  how  the  beginning  went,  and  how  the  struggle  began. 
Pinched  in  pocket,  oftentimes  hungry,  made  sullen  by  disappoint- 
ment, and  vindictive  from  the  utter  isolation  of  his  life,  he  hated 
society  because  he  believed  society  hated  him.  Hence  all  that  long, 
fierce  warfare  upon  it,  which  brought  him  curses,  insults,  blows, 
prosecutions,  fines,  and  once  an  imprisonment.  Even  in  the  gutter 
the  old  Scotch  desperation  writhed  up  against  the  foot  that  was 
trampling  him  down,  that  it  might  deal  a  blow  as  stark  as  him  of 
Colonsay  at  Bannock  burn.  Much  self-communing  makes  men  snv- 
ages  or  dwarfs;  solitude  either  gives  veneration  or  cruelty.  Bennett 
was  a  savage  of  the  streets;  his  cruelty  dealt  with  character  and  rep- 
utation—blasting and  blighting  them  as  a  hoar-frost  would  the  sum- 


72  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

mer  plants.  It  was  a  terrible  warfare,  this  of  bis  in  poverty  and 
gloom.  He  stood  upon  tbe  streets  witb  a  pencil  for  a  pistol — this 
freebooter  of  the  alleys,  crying  out  to  the  proud  and  the  rich:  Stand 
and  deliver.  Want  assailed  him,  and  the  law,  and  the  bravoes  of 
that  society,  whom  he  hated  and  defied.  But  the  Scotch  blood  and 
bitterness  were  there,  and  he  fought  like  a  wolf  at  bay.  His  pen 
was  dipped  in  poison.  Scandal,  stripped  to  the  waist,  made  an  elab- 
orate toilet  before  all  New  York  in  waiting,  and  fast  men  and  women 
clapped  their  hands  and  applauded.  Amid  it  all,  however,  he  had  a 
wife  who  was  beautiful  and  whom  he  idolized.  Strange  union,  this 
man  and  that  woman — one  hating  the  cliiffonieres  and  the  offal  of  his 
hateful  life,  and  the  other  turning  to  him  as  an  angel  of  goodness, 
when  the  deep  loathing  and  disgust  was  uppermost,  and  tying  a  rose- 
bud in  his  button-hole. 

He  struggled  also  for  notoriety,  and  gained  it — such  notoriety 
as  Lafitte  and  Murrell  had.  His  paper  was  read  by  all,  sought 
for  by  ail,  bought  by  all,  and  then  the  tide  turned.  One  day  he 
came  forth  a  new  man,  faultlessly  dressed,  having  gloves  upon  his 
hands,  and  boots  upon  his  feet.  He  lifted  an  elegant  beaver  to  the 
world,  and  bowed  to  it  as  one  who  meant  to  treat  the  world  civilly. 
This  soldier  of  fortune  had  become  to  be  a  Marshal  of  the  Empire  ; 
this  Dugald  Dalghetty  was  no  longer  a  Free  Lance,  but  a  Baron  with 
armorial  crest  and  quarterings.  The  two  lives  kept  pace  together — 
the  newspaper's  life  and  the  editor's  life.  Where  he  poisoned  before, 
hestimulated;  where  he  pulled  dowiibefore, he  builtup;  wherehe  lac- 
erated before,  he  soothed  and  gratified ;  and  where  he  administered  vit- 
riol before,  he  gave  opiates  and  rosewater.  The  shadow  of  the  Herald 
fell  upon  a  continent,  and  men  rested  under  it  and  found  it  grateful. 
The  immense  enterprise  and  brain-power  of  the  man  were  turned  into 
legitmate channels.  Never  sincere/liowever,  never  reliable,  never  a 
partisan  in  politics,  those  whom  he  supported  longest  and  truest  felt 
that  behind  the  mask  there  was  a  glim,  sardonic  smile  which  toler- 
ated them  while  it  despised  them.  Not  all  the  old  clansman's  blood 
was  entirely  eradicated.  The  love  of  the  sudden  and  the  grotesque 
would  ever  and  anon  break  out,  and  for  a  grand  sensation  men  knew 
he  would  sacrifice  a  President  or  immolate  a  senator.  And  he  did, 
roaming  over  the  political  field  as  an  incarnate  executioner,  cutting 
off  heads  that  were  sometimes  the  wisest  and  the  most  august.  In 
a  revelation,  he  would  have  been  Camille  Desmoulins ;  in  the 
Chamber,  Barriere;  at  the  barricades,  St.  Just,  who  turned  pale 
and  wept,  giving  as  a  reason  :  "I  am  too  young  and  too  poor  to 
die." 

The  country  grew,  and  grew,  and  changed  until  the  country  of 
Bennett's  youth  and  Bennett's  maturity  were  as  two  countries,  the 
years  a  rolling  stream  between.  But  he  filled  the  new  country  with 
his  fame  as  he  had  the  old.  The  Herald's  empire  remained  without 
a  rival,  and  to  day,  while  he  lies  a-dying  or  dead,  he  knows,  if  that 
curious,  gnarled,  rugged  nature  knows  aught  of  earth,  that  behind 
him  as  a  monument  is  left  the  greatest  newspaper  the  new  world  has 
ever  known  or  seen.  His  ways  to  make  it  such  were  his  own  ways, 
dark  and  crooked  though  they  were  at  times,  yet  he  had  that  great- 
est of  all  merit—success— the  only  standard  by  which  a  soldier  of 
fortune  can  be  judged  this  side  the  court  where  human  reason  and 
human  intellect  are  no  longer  lamps  to  light  and  guide  us  in  the 
paths  of  duty. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  73 

FENIMORE  COOPER. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  October  16,  1878.] 

In  the  Indian  summer,  that  honeymoon  of  the  year,  one  loves 
to  recall  the  names  of  those  who  made  nature  a  great  white  throne 
where  men  might  kneel,  or  dream,  or  worship.  It  is  good  for  all  of 
us,  no  matter,  when  or  how,  to  get  away  alone  in  the  dim  woods, 
and  those  authors  are  dearest  to  us  who  lead  on  to  where  the  even- 
ing will  fold  its  purple  wings  about  the  trees,  or  where,  in  the  white 
hush  of  the  morning,  the  kisses  of  the  breeze  will  awaken  the  sleep 
of  the  flowers.  Isolation  comes  often  as  an  anodyne  softer  than 
night,  or  dreams  in  the  night.  The  forest  has  a  voice  which,  thrill- 
ing, articulate,  mighty,  speaks  to  the  inmost  soul  of  the  glory  of 
God  and  of  the  wonderful  powers  of  His  Omnipotence. 

There  is  no  tree  which  gathers  to  its  grateful  branches  the  dew 
and  the  sunshine;  no  unseen  brook  that  babbles  of  the  lowlands  and 
the  summer's  sea;  no  trailing  vine  that  lifts  its  soft  lips  up  to  the 
bearded  lips  of  the  oak;  no  swaying  nest,  vocal  with  life  and  love; 
no  flower  that  feeds  its  bee;  no  spring  that  slakes  some  creature's 
thirst;  no  bird  that  sits  and  sines  for  joy;  no  glad  or  growing  or 
happy  thing  in  all  the  woods  that  has  no  voice  to  tell  something 
good  or  true — of  something  to  make  life  brighter  and  braver,  and 
better  for  all  of  us. 

Cooper  is  the  novelist  of  the  woods.  The  spirit  of  nature  has 
entered  into  his  genius  and  inspired  it.  As  Byron  loved  the  ocean; 
as  Shelley  the  placid  lakes,  where  the  blue  of  the  waves  and  the  blue 
of  the  sky  were  deep  together;  as  Poe  the  midnight  and  the  waning 
moon,  so  Cooper  loved  the  mighty  woods,  no  matter  whether 
spring  had  peopled  all  its  waiting  places  with  bud  and  blossom,  or 
summer  with  wealth  and  teeming  life,  or  autumn  with  crimson  and 
gold,  or  winter  with  its  vanguard  of  snow,  which  could  be  seen 
creeping  stealthily  through  the  pines,  until  the  melodies  of  the 
streams  were  mute,  and  a  glaze  as  of  death  had  swept  over  all  their 
dimples. 

Cold  actuality  has  discarded  his  Indian  pictures,  and  bereft 
many  a  hamlet  and  stream  of  the  delightful  romance  of  his  genius, 
but  who  wishes  to  analyze  a  novel?  What  difference  does  it  make  if 
the  champagne  which  intoxicates  is  a  mixture  of  prussic  acid,  Jersey 
cider,  and  beet  leaves?  None  want  to  look  beneath  the  sparkle  and 
foam  for  the  dark  sediment  that  has  headache  in  it,  and  heartache  as 
well.  Cooper  fascinates.  Through  five  books  he  carries  a  single 
character — that  of  Natty  Bumppo — and  the  light  that  shines  upon 
him  is  always  the  light  which  eomes  from  some  tree,  some  stream, 
some  desolate  trail,  some  hushed  and  thrilling  ambushment,  some 
river  that  runs  to  the  sea,  some  little  clearing  where  a  cabin  stands, 
the  blue  smoke  going  up  to  the  blue  skies  as  a  prayer  to  the  good 
God  who  guards  alike  the  trapper  in  the  wilderness  and  the  king  in 
the  midst  of  his  capital. 

We  do  not  believe  that  the  fame  of  the  great  American  novelist 
is  dying  out,  no  matter  what  some  Eastern  critics  have  lately  said 
and  written.  Who  is  there  to  take  his  place  ?  What  hand  anywhere 
yet  lifted  up  can  weave  the  web  of  romance  as  he  has  woven  it  about 
all  the  great  lakes,  and  all  the  great  tribes  gone  or  decimated  ?  It 
is  true  that  the  pathway  of  progress  lies  over  the  graves  of  the  Indians, 
and  that  the  vices  of  civilization  have  made  the  remnant  of  the  race 
a  cruel,  beggarly,  degraded  few;  but  we  seek  only  for  our  gratifica- 
tion among  the  ideal  creations  of  his  fancy,  and  not  where  the 


74  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

squalid  Diggers  live  on  grasshoppers,  and  the  vindictive  Apaches 
murder  all  alike — the  old  and  the  young,  the  women  and  the  chil- 
dren. It  is  nature  we  want  as  revealed  by  one  who  worshiped  at 
her  shrine,  and  who  felt  her  beauty  and  her  glory  enter  him  as  a 
divine  love,  purifying  his  imagination  and  giving  to  his  prose  the 
music  and  tremor  of  a  hymn.  God  grant  that  the  mantle  of  this 
great  man,  so  long  unknown,  may  yet  find  a  resting-place  upon  some 
new  American  Cooper,  as  wonderful  in  his  creations  as  the  great 
original. 

SCHUYLER  COLFAX. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  IS,  1873.] 

There  is  a  momentary  pity  in  the  hearts  of  most  men  for  any  ani- 
mal hunted  hard  and  brought  at  last  to  bay.  No  matter  how 
trapped,  or  sought,  or  slain,  some  commiseration  will  mingle  with 
the  defcth  struggle  when  the  yearnings  of  the  chase  are  over,  and 
not  a  little  of  weariness  and  disgust  because  for  the  skill  of  the 
hunter  there  could  only  be  the  conquest  that  destroyed  without  re- 
storing again.  But  if  anywhere  in  all  this  broad  land  there  is  one 
who  begrudged  the  Credit  Mobilier  its  righteous  and  unmerciful 
work  upon  Schuyler  Colfax,  there  is  no  record  made  by  either 
press  or  pulpit. 

An  unctuous,  smiling,  psalm-singing,  cold-water  hypocrite,  he 
must  have  knelt  down  when  he  took  his  bribe  just  to  show  God  how 
fervent  he  was.  He  must  have  laughed,  too,  in  the  face  of  his  soul 
and  promised  it  a  camp-meeting  holiday,  with  a  feast  of  hymns  and 
a  revel  of  prayer,  wherein  conscience,  a  beautiful  angel  no  longer, 
transformed  its  body  into  railroad  stock  and  its  wings  into  cou- 
p0ns — a  dividend  for  the  harp  within  its  hand  and  the  "crown  upon 
its  head. 

The  creature  and  the  pet  of  the  war,  it  swallowed  him  as  a 
mighty  whale  a  gigantic  Jonah.  Strange  food  for  such  a  stomach. 
Strange  taste  for  the  appetite  that  had  devoured  cities  sacked  and 
pillaged,  provinces  laid  waste,  and  living  armies  arrayed  as  growing 
corn,  fresh  with  the  beams  of  the  morning  of  life  ai.d  ripe^for  the 
scythe  of  the  harvester  Death.  One  day  he  was  cast  forth  again, 
and  the  faithful  places  knew  him  a  miracle  by  the  white  of  his  sanc- 
tified vest,  the  cut  of  his  orthodox  coat,  the  zeal  of  his  loyal 
prayers,  and  the  penetrating  sweetness  of  a  seraphic  smile  that  made 
all  the  tough  missionaries  easier  of  digestion,  and  all  the  Christian 
Association  stockholders  in  the  radical  party.  Babies  were  named 
for  him,  and  he  kissed  and  blessed  them,  and  dabbled  among  their 
diapers  for  votes.  Temperance  societies  invoked  his  inspiration, 
and  he  drank  their  soda  water  and  their  chamomile  tea.  Sewing 
circles  worshiped  at  his  shrine,  and  offered  up  a  sister  a  day  as  a 
sacrifice.  Sunday-schools  patented  little  pious  proverbs  and  pinned 
them  to  the  name  of  Colfax.  -Prayer-meetings  wrestled  with  the 
Lord  for  Schuyler's  promotion,  and  eliminated  from  their  cate- 
chisms the  story  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira. 

For  others  there  were  glory,  fame,  records  made  noble  in  battle, 
manhood,  triumphs,  deeds  done  daringly  for  man  and  for  humanity; 
but  for  Schuyler  the  sole  irrevocable  and  eternal  smile.  He  laughed 
in  the  faces  of  the  corpses  that  the  waves  of  the  war  threw  out  upon 
the  ghastly  beaches  of  society;  at  the  feet  that  had  waded  in  the 
valleys  of  the  strife  and  came  away  crimson  to  the  instep;  at  maimed 
and  furloughed  veterans,  homeward  bound  and  laureled;  at  fairs 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  75 

and  sanitary  gatherings,  and  at  all  the  crowds  that  met  to  tell  of 
victorous  fights  by  laud  or  sea.  One  day  the  men  who  frowned  and 
fought  were  mustered  out,  and  Schuyler  got  well  ahead  in  the 
jackal  race  that  knew  no  goal  but  loyalty  and  plunder.  But  alas! 
alas !  for  Schuyler.  Another  day  and  a  fisherman  came  who  cast  his 
net  into  the  sacred  places  of  the  House  and  Senate  and  snared  such 
lordly  and  loyal  fish  as  Patterson  and  Dawes,  Harlan  and  Kelley, 
Mr.  Speaker  Blaine  and  Mr.  President  Colfax.  Even  through  the 
meshes  of  the  trap  there  shone  on  the  bland  face  of  Schuyler  the 
same  old  smile.  They  dragged  him  forth  in  the  light  of  the  Credit 
Mobilier  conflagration,  so  that  the  world  might  see  what  manner  of 
a  fish  he  was.  There  was  the  same  immaculate  vest,  the  same  coat, 
and  brass  buttons,  and  cold-water  countenance,  and  beaming  and 
benignant  face.  Brother  Newman  recognized  him  and  blessed  him. 
The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  Boston  drew  a  draft  in 
favor  of  his  integrity  and  demanded  that  the  Great  God  should  cash 
it;  South  Bend  thrilled  through  all  the  limestone  veins  of  its  tem- 
perance societies  and  drowned  its  virtuous  grief  in  soothing  ginger- 
pop.  Too  late!  Not  Lazarus  at  the  rich  man's  gate  was  ever  more 
an  object  of  contempt — ever  a  more  polluted,  tainted  and  accursed 
thing.  To  bribery  there  had  been  added  perjury,  to  hypocriscy  the 
crime  of  detection.  Even  the  smile  that  had  cheated  the  devil 
through  all  the  years  of  hatred  and  persecution  and  annual  baby- 
shows,  and  Good  Templar  funeral  services,  fled  from  the  mouth  that 
had  sworn  to  a  lie,  and  hovered  like  a  dove,  it  is  supposed,  until 
taken  into  a  laminated  steel-spring  hoop-skirt  factory  at  South 
Bend,  Indiana.  Men  'who  hold  bribes  in  cosmopolitan  hands  can 
wash  them  and  get  well  again;  but  for  the  Puritan  who  all  his  life 
fingered  only  the  prayers  of  the  Pharisee,  there  is  only  leprosy  and 
death.  He  could  not  rend  his  garments  and  be  forgiven  if  he 
would.  For  the  lion ,  snared  or  shot,  there  is  human  pity  and  regret, ; 
for  the  soft-pawed,  slinking  jackal,  only  the  bayings  of  the  watch- 
dogs and  the  broom-sticks  of  the  washerwomen.  Away  with  the 
corpse  to  the  Potter's  Field.  Is  there  any  need  of  epitaph?  No. 
Yet,  lest  loyalty  should  seek  some  nobler  grave  to  find  its  perjured 
priest,  a  monument  uplifted  there  might  bear  for  record  the  simple 
words — URIAH  HEEP. 

BON  VOYAGE,  MISS  NELLIE. 

[St.  Louis  Evening  Dispatch,  May  22, 1874.] 

The  young,  innocent  thing  just  married  to  a  stranger  and  borne 
to  a  stranger's  home,  will  carry  with  her  the  blessings  and  good 
wishes  of  the  American  people.  No  matter  the  pomp  of  the  cere- 
mony, the  preciousness  of  the  bridal  gifts,  the  magnificent  display 
that  waited  upon  the  marriage  of  the  president's  daughter,  there  was 
something  supremely  sad  in  that  almost  regal  heart  plighting,  where 
the  fairer  and  the  weaker  was  so  soon  to  say  good-bye,  and  so  soon  to 
sail  away  from  parents  and  kindred  and  native  land,  the  passionate 
yearning  for  which  is  never  known  until  forsaken.  In  the  spring 
time  affluence  of  her  first  love,  and  bravely  loyal  and  womanly 
patient,  she  will  bear  herself  proudly  up  and  sing  and  sigh  not 
.through  the  beautiful  English  summer  weather;  but  when  it  is 
autumn  on  all  the  woods,  and  the  night  comes,  and  the  talk  of  home 
and  friends  beyond  the  sea,  tears  will  gather  in  the  calm  brown  eyes, 
and  pensive  longingsthat  whisper  and  cling  about  the  heart  until,  as 
a  bird  set  free,  the  sweet  young  bride,  so  homesick  and  so  hungry  for 


76  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

the  land  of  her  birth,  will  return  again  for  a  mother's  tender  kiss  and 
a  father's  gentle  greeting. 

Not  as  the  daughter  of  a  president,  nor  yet  as  one  born  to  the 
memories  of  a  name  and  fame  great  in  the  somber  glories  of  a  civil 
war,  do  the  Americans  send  benisons  and  blessings  after  the  sweet 
young  bride.  For  her  womanhood  alone  do  they  honor  her,  and  for 
the  rare  fragrance  of  a  sinless  and  stainless  life.  A  Christian 
mother  reared  her  a  Christian  child,  and  she  carries  to  the  old  world 
from  the  new  a  character  made  strong  with  the  precepts  of  duty 
and  a  proud  consciousness  that  the  true  domain  where  she  can  rule 
by  right  divine  is  home — the  subjects  whose  loyalty  is  most  impor- 
tant, the  children  that  God  will  give  her — the  works  most  necessary 
for  her  to  study,  their  little  hearts— and  the  treasure  best  worth 
seeking,  her  husband's  love. 

LITTLE  NELSON  W.  DALBY. 

[Sedalia  Democrat.'] 

Sang  a  poet  once: 

"  God's  lightning  spares  the  laureled  head." 

But  why  not  that  other  one,  laureled  with  six  summers  of  curls 
and  six  summers  of  sunshine?  Don't  you  see  he  was  taken  the  day 
before  the  May  day,  when  all  the  birds  could  have  sung  for  him,  and 
all  the  buds  burst  into  bloom  for  him,  and  all  the  grasses  grow  so 
green  for  him,  and  all  the  odorous,  blossomy,  glorious  weather  put 
surely  for  him  the  red  in  his  cheeks  and  the  south  wind  in  his  hair? 
You  see  he  was  also  so  young.  Every  little  garment  he  left  con- 
tained a  legacy  of  grief.  He  did  not  walk  without  taking  the  hand 
of  his  mother  or  father.  He  never  knew  a  night  outside  the  parent 
nest.  He  clung  so.  If  he  had  only  been  a  soldier  and  fallen  in  bat- 
tle, his  face  to  the  foe  and  the  flag  of  his  faith  above  him  ;  if  he  had 
only  been  a  man,  scarred  by  life's  combat  and  scorched  by  life's 
fever  ;  if  he  could  only  have  worn  harness  and  put  a  war  plume  in 
his  helmet's  crest ;  but  you  see  he  was  only  a  little  blue-eyed,  fair- 
faced,  timid,  shrinking  boy,  laying  his  head  in  hismother's  lap  when 
he  wanted  to  sleep,  and  saying  his  prayers  by  his  mother's  knee 
when  he  wanted  to  be  put  to  bed. 

Peace  after  such  a  sacrifice !  Never  any  more  this  side  the 
river  called  the  River  of  Death.  There  is  the  little  grave,  lying  out 
in  the  dawn  and  the  dew,  awaiting  the  resurrection.  There  are  the 
garments  he  wore.  There  are  broken  toys, 

"And  pieces  of  rings, 

And  fragements  of  songs  which  nobody-  sings, 
A  lute  unswept,  and  a  harp  without  strings, 
And  part  of- an  infant's  prayer." 

There  are  words  before  the  cooing  had  given  place  to  the  lisping, 
and  the  lisping  had  lapsed  into  the  thrill  and  the  vibration  of  the  yet 
untutored  voice.  There  is  the  vacant  chair.  There  is  above  these 
and  over  and  beyond  all  these,  the  cry  of  the  finite  soul  trying  to 
pierce  the  infinite  :  What  of  the  future,  oh!  merciful  God,  is  it 
annihilation — is  it  the  dark  ? 

What  can  be  said  to  make  the  utter  agony  an  hour  less  in  pain  ? 
Nothing.  There  is  no  need  to  try.  Even  love  is  stronger  than' 
time,  than  change  of  scene,  than  efforts  at  forgetfulness,  and  here 
was  adoration.  My  boy  !  my  boy  !  not  my  angel,  that  is  the  cry 
from  every  human  lip  that  ever  cursed  the  daylight  because  death 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  77 

had  made  it  hideous,  or  clung  to  an  idol's  lips,  in  one  passionate 
caress,  lips  pale,  and  pinched,  and  wan,  and  drawn  forever.  "The 
Lord  gives  and  the  Lord  takes  away."  Hush  !  put  nothing  upon 
the  Lord  that  makes  Him  merciless,  or  monstrous,  or  the  slayer  of 
the  lambs  in  his  own  sheep -fold.  The  lord  loves  little  children.  He 
had  once  a  son,  whose  death,  though  in  the  full  prime  of  his  heav- 
enly manhood,  shook  the  earth  as  though  hell  had  risen  upon  it  and 
mastered  it,  and  every  accursed  murderer  upon  it  was  to  be  given 
back  unto  the  night  and  chaos.  The  boy's  fate  came  out  of  the 
unknown  swiftly,  and  that  was  all.  It  is  best  to  believe  this,  for 
woe  be  to  the  land  when  its  mothers — groping  in  the  dark  for  their 
children,  blind,  gasping,  crying  aloud  for  help,  come  face  to  face 
with  a  creed  which  tells  them  that  God  took  them  away. 

As  little  Nelson  Dalby  was  in  the  flesh — tender,  confiding, 
beautiful — so  let  him  be  remembered  by  his  parents  and  adored  until 
the  unfathomed  gives  back  its  dead  to  those  who  seek  them  there, 
or  utter  and  eternal  night  its  surcease  of  sorrow  and  f  orgetf  ulness. 
Keep  everything  his  little  hands  ever  touched,  and  everything  that 
ever — as  toy  or  trinket — made  his  wondering  eyes  to  shine,  or  the 
red  in  his  cheeks  to  deepen  like  a  scarlet  japonica  bud.  Never 
mind  the  future.  On  this  earth  are  the  thorns,  the  parched  high- 
way, the  covering  up  of  those  faces  which  give  to  the  heart  a  hor- 
rible drought.  Make  of  his  memory  a  shrine  and  worship  there  as 
flesh  worships  flesh  which  is  its  own.  Grief  has  its  luxury.  Some- 
thing that  is  exquisite  may  be  even  given  to  despair.  The  darling 
is  gone  and  he  is  not  gone.  Imagination  perpetually  renews  his 
walk,  his  talk,  his  infinite  confidences  and  his  good-night  kiss  that 
will  be  forever  and  forever  a  benediction. 

HENKY  CLAY  DEAN. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  13, 1887.] 

This  many-sided  intellectual  giant — and  we  refer  solely  to  his 
intellect  and  his  heart  in  any  analysis  that  may  be  made  of  his  char- 
acter— has  suddenly  passed  away.  He  was  a  strange  man  in  many 
respects,  yet  one  of  the  most  genial  and  lovable  men,  when  once 
thoroughly  understood  and  appreciated,  ever  known  in  Missouri. 
Beneath  an  exterior  which  could  not  always  be  easily  penetrated, 
he  carried  the  conscience  of  a  Christian  and  the  heart  of  a  child.  If 
the  expression  may  be  permitted  he  had  two  natures,  that  of  the 
warrior  and  that  of  the  priest.  The  hand  that  smote  upon  occasion 
so  relentlessly  and  so  remorselessly  was  no  less/prompt  to  soothe,  to 
heal  and  to  make  whole  again.  A  tale  of  sorrow  moved  him  to 
instant  response.  Those  who  had  no  friends  always  found  him  a 
friend  in  need.  His  good  deeds  were  innumerable,  and  his  charities, 
for  his  means  were  larger  by  far  than  any  one  supposed;  but  he 
neither  boasted  of  the  first  nor  claimed  for  the  last  any  sort  of  recog- 
nition or  approbation. 

Intellectually  he  was  rarely  gifted.  He  was  preacher,  lawyer, 
politician,  public  speaker,  lecturer,  farmer  and  author.  Many  qual 
ities  went  to  make  up  his  power  before  a  crowd.  He  was  mighty 
in  invective,  but  it  was  the  invective  which  came  at  an  adversary 
with  a  club.  Perhaps  no  man  ever  used  to  more  advantage  the  rare 
exquisite  gift  of  irony,  and  he  did  with  it  what  few  writers  or 
speakers  of  this  country  have  ever  yet  succeeded  in  doing — he  joined 
with  it  an  indescribable  pathos.  Hence  his  power  before  a  jury 
when  his  intellectual  and  his  moralnature  was  aroused.  At  other  times 


78  JOHN  NE\VMAN  EDWARDS. 

lie  dealt  only  in  a  ponderous  kind  of  logic  and  built  up  his  speeches 
as  some  mighty  triphammer  might  forge  an  iron  mainmast  for  a 
man-of-war.  His  weakness  in  politics  appeared  to  lie  in  his  want 
of  flexibility  and  plan  of  battle.  He  lacked  in  the  capacity  of  mass- 
ing his  forces  and  seizing  instantly  upon  all  the  strong  points  of  a 
disputed  field.  Too  much  precious  time  was  often  wasted  upon 
skirmishes  that  his  scouts  might  have  looked  after,  or  upon  recon- 
noissances  which  his  captains  might  have  controlled.  Gifted  as  lie 
was,  these  gifts  were  not  at  all  times  homogeneous.  With  a  mind 
as  vivid  as  a  dream,  rapid  in  its  encompassments  as  thought,  of  won- 
derful grasp,  resource  and  fertility,  it  yet  did  not  drive  forward 
straight  to  the  end,  knowing  neither  variableness  nor  shadow  of 
turning.  A  pleasant  byway  was  lure  enough  to  take  him  aside;  a 
rare  look  put  him  to  dreaming.  There  were  too  many  unresponsive 
fibers  in  his  individual  make-up  ever  to  permit  him  to  become  a  suc- 
cessful politician.  The  harness  of  the  caucus  so  galled  his  withers 
that  he  would  frequently  stop  short  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  refus- 
ing thereafter  to  pull  a  single  pound  for  either  love  or  money.  Of 
the  stronger  and  more  potent  elements  of  leadership  he  did  not  pos- 
sess a  single  one.  Not  a  few  have  been  the  magnificent  structures 
he  has  erected,  only  to  burn  them  down  or  blow  them  up  in  a  moment 
of  spleen,  or  disgust,  or  uncontrollable  indignation.  For  a  hot  fight 
under  a  black  flag, where  for  the  wounded  there  was  no  surgeon  and 
for  the  dead  no  sepulcher,  he  was  incomparable.  But  if  strategy 
were  required  solely,  if  the  head  alone  and  not  the  heart  were  to  dom- 
inate the  struggle,  if  only  the  cold  logistics  of  mathematical  maneu- 
vering were  to  be  permitted  to  the  combatants,  he  was  not  the  man  to 
lead;  but  what  if  he  could  not  lead  in  such  a  crisis  ?  It  is  sometimes 
as  vital  to  destroy  as  it  is  to  build  up. 

He  wrote  one  book— the  "  Crimes  of  the  Civil  War"  which  was 
fierce,  fragmentary,  and  not  unfrequently  viciously  savage.  He 
wrote  another — the  "  Criminals  of  the  Civil  War" — which  was,  if 
anything,  fiercer  and  more  savage  than  the  other,  but  it  has  never 
been  printed.  The  manuscript  was  burned  at  the  time  his  house 
was,  some  several  years  ago,  together  with  a  library  that  was 
unequaled  in  Missouri,  and  which,  with  nigh  on  to  10,000  volumes, 
he  had  been  a  lifetime  in  collecting.  His  reading  was  vast,  his 
information  almost  superhuman,  and  if  such  a  thing  could  be  pos- 
sible, or  even  half-way  possible,  he  had,  as  it  were,  the  whole 
recorded  history  of  the  world  stowed  in  his  mind,  and  ready  to  be 
summoned  for  any  purpose  at  his  bidding.  Some  of  his  monologues 
were  only  surpassed  by  those  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena.  When 
the  mood  was  on  him  he  put  spells  upon  people  through  the  sheer 
force  of  an  intellectual  necromancy  that  forced  them  to  listen  even 
as  the  guest  to  the  marriage  feast  was  forced  to  listen  by  the  ancient 
mariner. 

He  loved  much  to  talk  of  the  hereafter.  He  speculated  much 
as  to  what  was  beyond  the  grave.  He  sought  in  many  ways  to  pen- 
etrate the  future,  and  to  get  but  one  bare  glimpse  of  something  real 
and  tangible  that  told  of  another  life.  Upon  this  earth  nothing  was 
ever  vouchsafed  to  him.  Does  he  know  it  all  now  ? 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  March  9, 1887.] 

The  blow  has  fallen  at  last,  and  the  wizard  of  the  pulpit  of 
Plymouth  church  can  no  longer  conjure  a  congregation  which 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  79 

adored  him.  That  sleep  came  upon  him  which  he  had  so  often 
described,  and  when  he  awoke  he  had  solved  for  himself  the  great 
problem  of  the  hereafter.  How  he  strove  to  do  this  while  yet  upon 
earth.  How  from  under  the  dark  shadow  of  restless  intellectual 
doubts  which  come  to  all  men  who  read  and  think,  and  reason,  he, 
yearned  for  a  faith  that  never  wavered.  How,  when  he  imagined, 
in  the  fervor  of  an  exalted  vision,  that  he  saw  the  porphyry  domes, 
the  jasper  gates  and  the  golden  highways  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  he 
looked  again,  but  only  on  a  mirage.  How,  step  by  step,  he  sought 
for  the  soul's  immortality  through  every  proof  that  God,  or  man,  or 
s  iience,  or  nature,  or  creed,  or  conscience,  or  revealment  had  fur- 
nished, he  has  best  declared  in  a  mountain  of  discourses  as  high  as 
Plymouth's  steeple. 

Did  he  find  before  death  came  to  him  that  perfect  peace  which 
can  only  come  from  a  perfect  knowledge?  What  matters  it?  He 
lived  the  life  that  was  in  him,  and  better  than  that  no  man  can  do 
who  was  ever  yet  born  of  woman. 

With  Beecher's  final  faith  or  belief,  however,  we  have  nothing 
to  do.  That  was  solely  a  matter  between  himself  and  his  Creator. 
The  reckoning  already  has  been  had,  the  score  been  paid,  the  re- 
cording angel's  book  closed  for  the  present ;  and  somewhere  out  in 
the  wide,  white  hush  of  eternity  is  a  freed  spirit  waiting  for  the 
resurrection. 

As  a  preacher  he  is  the  most  difficult  man  to  analyze,  in  an 
intellectual  way,  in  the  United  States.  At  times  he  had  an  almost 
indescribable  pathos.  Often  his  irony  was  superb,  but  it  was  the 
irony  of  a  splendid  spiritual  digestion,  and,  therefore,  as  a  balm  it 
always  carried  with  it  a  touch  of  amazing  grace.  Satire  helped  him 
upon  occasion,  but  it  was  not  the  satire  of  the  scorner  and  the  hater 
— it  was  rather  that  of  one  who  was  fond  of  a  laugh  and  fond  of  a 
story. 

Born  actor,  his  mobile  face  italicised,  as  it  were,  each  emotion 
which  he  wished  to  make  emphatic.  Not  unfrequently  a  quaint 
humor  played  along  the  edges  of  his  sermons  as  a  sunbeam  along  the 
edges  of  a  storm  cloud.  Then  the  lightnings  of  some  terrible  denun- 
ciations would  leap  forth,  and  one  saw  only  the  darker  and  more 
somber  aspect  of  the  sky.  In  this  he  was  dramatic,  but  what  is  in- 
tense realism  at  last  if  it  is  not  vivid  contrast,  and  the  swift  inter- 
mingling of  sunshine  and  shadow?  He  surely  loved  nature  as  only 
a  passionate  lover  could  love  her.  He  took  into  the  pulpit  images  of 
fields  where  the  green  corn  stood  in  serried  ranks  like  lines  of  infan- 
try formed  for  battle;  of  summer  wheat  fields,  the  south  wind 
bending  their  bearded  heads  as  though  at  the  touch  of  ^  its  caressing 
fingers  they  had  bowed  as  to  a  benediction;  of  twilight  woods, 
where  nest  said  good-bye  to  nest  in  the  gloaming;  of  apple  orchards 
white  and  pink  with  blossoms;  of  dewy  lanes,  where  on  eiiher 
hand  could  be  heard  the  weird  laughter  of  the  owls  in  the  thickets; 
of  bird  and  tree  and  bird  and  leaf  and  fljwer  and  all  sorts  of 
blessed  things  which  filled  the  heart  with  reverenceand  made  man  in 
spite  of  himself  lift  up  his  thoughts  from  nature  to  nature's  God. 

In  the  stronger  and  terser "ser.ee  of  epigram  Mr.  Beecher  was 
notably  lacking.  Weak  also  in  pictiiresqnene?s — that  sort  of  pic- 
turesqueness  which  can  make  one  hear  the  flapping  of  invisible 
wings  and  the  swish  or  the  flow  of  imaginary  waters — he  yet  had 
what  answered  almost  the  Fame  purpose— a  quick,  entertaining  and 
corruscating  fancy.  Imagination  wns  also  wanting — that  sort  of 
imagination  which  could  make  one  see  a  sinner  being  held  up  over 
the  very  mouth  of  hell  and  make  one  smell  his  very  hair  scorching. 


80  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWAKDS. 

He  could  not  soar.  He  never  in  all  his  long  life,  according  to  our 
estimate  of  him  as  a  preacher,  preached  a  really  strong,  terse,  mass- 
ive, logical  sermon.  He  could  take  hold  of  the  heart  and  do  with  it 
pretty  much  what  he  pleased,  but  he  almost  always  left  the  head 
where  he  found  it.  He  was  utterly  incapable  of  building  a  massive 
edifice  of  thought,  perfect  in  every  arch,  beam,  door,  floor,  window 
and  rafter — story  upon  story  and  stone  upon  stone ;  but  he  could 
build  a  beautiful  cottage,  with  lattice-work  all  about  it,  and  put 
angels  into  it,  and  make  honey  suckles  form  a  bower  for  them  in  which 
to  play  their  harps  and  wave  their  palms,  and  decorate  it  with  all 
sorts  of  little  nooks  and  crannies,  and  fill  these  with  all  sorts  of 
quaint  rugs  and  rare  books  and  celestial  brick-a-brac  generally; 
but  for  a  fortress  that  the  very  wiles  of  the  devil  himself  could  not 
prevail  against  through  any  force  of  sup,  or  siege,  or  stratagem,  or 
cunning — well,  some  other  hands  than  Mr.  Beecher's  would  have  to 
hew  out  the  rock  and  rear  the  structure. 

What,  then,  was  his  power  over  his  congregation,  over  his 
audiences,  ar,d  over  all  public  bodies  with  whom  he  came  in  contact 
or  before  whom  he  delivered  not  only  sermons  but  various  other 
kinds  of  addresses?  It  was  the  powerful  individuality  of  the  man 
to  begin  with,  buttressed  upon  an  immense  vitality,  electricity  and 
personal  magnetism.  Then  he  had  pathos,  knowledge,  dramatic 
capacity  in  no  small  degree,  all  sorts  of  resources  to  be  summoned 
at  a  moment's  notice  for  his  apt  and  apropos  illustrations,  a  forgiv- 
ing charity  for  the  errors  and  the  frailties^of  poor  human  nature,  an 
appositeness  in  putting  things  that,  while  it  is  not  true  eloquence,  yet 
does  much  that  real  eloquence  alone  can  do — more  demagogy  than 
appears  at  first  sight,  vividness,  perspicacity,  anecdote,  every  art  of 
a  finished  actor,  ease,  grace,  the  poetry  of  motion,  much  elocution, 
and — above  all,  and  beyond  all  for  the  purposes  for  wrhich  the  gift 
was  given — an  almos.t  supernatural  acquaintance  with  human 
nature. 

There  wTill  be  innumerable  obituary  articles  written  on  the 
death  of  this  famous  American  pulpit  preacher.  He  will  be  dis- 
cussed from  every  conceivable  standpoint.  He  has  had  his  share  of 
harsh  criticism  and  indiscriminate  laudation.  He  has  gone  through 
some  fiery  ordeals,  and  as  he  himself  has  sometimes  said  in  moments 
of  unutterable  sadness,  the  way  has  seemed  to  be  so  dreary  and  dark, 
and  life's  burdens  so  heavy ;  but,  whatever  the  final  judgment  may  be 
that  his  countrymen  shall  pronounce  upon  him,  both  as  a  man  and 
as  a  preacher,  this  should  always  precede  the  verdict: 

In  men  -whom  men  condemn  as  ill 

I  lind  so  much  of  goodness  still, 

In  men  whom  men  pronounce  divine 

I  find  so  much  of  sin  and  blot, 
I  hesitate  to  draw  the  line, 

Where  God  has  not. 

GENERAL  ALBERT  SIDNEY  JOHNSTON. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  10, 1887.] 

An  equestrian  statue,  erected  to  the  memorj^  of  General  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston,  has  just  been  unveiled  in  New  Orleans  with  heart- 
felt and  appropriate  ceremonies.  Randall  Gibson,  who  commanded 
a  Brigade  under  him  at  Shiloh,  delivered  the  memorial  address,  and 
Jefferson  Davis  passed  in  review  his  life,  his  military  services 
and  his  spotless  character. 

Albert  Sidney  Johnston  was  a  man  whose  ability  as  a  com- 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  81 

mander  the  soldiers  of  the  Civil  War  will  always  love  to  study.  They 
never  tire  of  asking,  one  of  another,  the  following  questions:  If  he 
had  lived,  would  he  have  driven  Grant  into  the  river?  If  he  had 
lived,  would  he  not  have  been  made  commander-in-chief  of  all  the 
Confederate  forces?  If  he  had  lived,  would  he  not  have  finished  the 
battle  of  Shiloh  during  the  first  day's  fighting?  If  _he  had  lived, 
would  he  have  fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  earlier  years,  and  would 
he  finally  have  become  the  bulwark  and  the  savior  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy? 

These  be  hard  questions  to  answer.  As  the  Confederacy  was 
organized,  it  is  doubtful  if  even  a  Napoleon  Bonaparte  could  have 
saved  it.  The  politicians  got  hold  of  it  almost  before  it  had  put  its 
armor  on.  Nothing  would  do  them  but  a  constitution,  a  congress, 
a  president,  a  cabinet  and  a  civil  administration.  Not  a  single 
leader  in  the  South,  bold  or  otherwise,  arose  in  his  place  to  demand 
a  dictator.  Secession  was  a  mere  juggler's  term.  Some  coiner  of 
phrases  or  quibbler  over  abstractions  invented  it.  Revolution  was 
the  word — stark,  inexorable,  unmistakable  revolution.  For  this 
anything  else  but  a  dictator  was  a  criminal  absurdity.  With  a 
president,  there  would  always  be  an  administration  and  an  anti- 
administration  party;  with  a  congress,  the  outs  would  be  eternally 
striving  to  circumvent  the  ins ;  with  a  constitution,  the  strict  con- 
structionists  would  do  little  else  but  fiddle  and  dance  while  Rome 
was  burning;  with  a  cabinet,  red  tape  was  bound  to  be  a  king.  A 
general  in  the  field,  to  get  to  his  chief  authority,  would  have  to  trav- 
erse as  many  avenues  as  there  were  rat-holes  about  a  granary  filled 
with  corn.  While  armies  were  crying  for  arms,  ammunition,  food, 
clothing  and  medicine,  cabinet  officers  would  be  indexing  reports 
and  pointing  out  how  every  requisition  would  have  to  go  through 
the  regular  channels,  you  know. 

Johnston  fought  but  one  battle  before  he  was  killed,  that  of 
Shiloh,  and  he  did  not  fight  that  to  a  finish.  Up  to  the  momen 
when  a  minie-ball  cut  the  femoral  artery  of  his  right  leg  he  had 
everything  his  own  way.  His  plans  were  working  to  perfection. 
The  various  subdivisions  of  his  army  had  taken  the  ground  pointed 
out  to  them,  and  when  the  designated  hour  came  had  entered 
promptly  into  the  fight.  It  was  not  possible  for  any  general  to  have 
held  his  forces  better  in  hand.  True,  it  had  been  his  intention  to 
begin  the  attack  one  day  earlier  than  he  actually  did  begin  it.  but 
he  could  not  be  everywhere  at  one  and  the  same  time,  and  so,  at  a 
most  critical  period,  some  of  his  subordinates  failed  him.  But  for 
this  Buell could  never  have  reached  Pittsburg  Landing  in  time  to  suc- 
cor Grant,  no  matter  whether  Johnston  had  lived  or  died,  nor 
whether  Beauregard  had  or  had  not  called  a  halt  to  rearrange  his 
lines  of  battle. 

That  Johnston  was  a  man  of  splendid  administrative  ability 
none  have  ever  denied.  That  in  a  military  point  of  view  he  showed 
skill  of  the  very  highest  order  in  his  operations  in  Kentucky,  his 
Federal  opponents  have  borne  ample  and  generous  testimony.  He 
seems  to  have  known  war  and  to  have  had  a  better  idea  of  the  exi- 
gencies and  the  requirements  of  the  struggle  than  any  other  com- 
mander who  fought  for  the  South.  From  his  writings  and  from 
some  sketches  and  memoranda  of  campaigns  left  behind  him,  there 
can  be  no  mistake  made  about  the  grasp  of  his  intellect,  nor  of  the 
further  fact  that  such  was  his  prescience  and  his  logical  acumen 
from  the  standpoint  simply  of  the  soldier  that  he  predicted  future 
events  with  a  vividness  and  directness  that  the  aftertime  was  to 
prove  more  than  prophetic. 


82  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

As  far  as  it  was  fought  by  Johnston,  Shiloh  was  the  most  perfect 
battle  of  the  war  and  the  most  glorious  for  the  arms  and  the  prowess 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy.  When  he  fell  the  contrast  came  in, 
and  from  this  contrast  much  may  be  understood  how  immeasurably 
he  towered  above  those  who  succeeded  him  in  the  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  Tennessee. 

KATKOFF. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  1, 1887.] 

If  the  report  is  true  that  M.  Katkoff,  editor  of  the  Moscow 
Gazette,  has  fallen  into  deep  disgrace  with  the  Czar,  then  indeed  has 
one  stormy  petrel  been  brought  to  the  ground  with  ruffled  plumage 
or  broken  wing. 

In  his  journalistic  make-up  he  was  part  Tartar  and  part  Greek, 
that  is  to  say:  He  rode  like  a  Cossack  and  glided  like  a  snake.  His 
newspaper  wore  always  two  masks.  Behind  the  first  one  could 
invaribly  hear  the  rattling  of  chains  and  the  swishing  of  the  knout — 
that  was  for  Russia.  Behind  the  second  one  could  always  hear  an 
air  from  an  opera  or  the  voice  of  a  woman — that  was  for  Europe. 
Remove  both,  and  there  was  the  elegant  man  of  the  world — smiling, 
plausible,  soft  of  speech,  a  rose  in  his  buttonhole  and  a  love  knot  in 
his  hair.  It  was  as  one  going  into  a  coffin  to  find  a  corpse  and  find- 
ing Adonis. 

The  Emperor  Nicholas  first  discovered  in  the  young  Katkoff 
those  elements  of  superb  pliability  and  audacity  which  have  made 
more  tyrants  and  more  revolutions  than  any  other  two  elements 
which  go  to  make  up  the  sum  of  human  character.  Of  course  he 
had  others,  and  shining  ones,  but  these  two  constituted  the  pick-ax 
and  spade  with  which  he  worked.  The  Emperor  put  him  at  Mos- 
cow, laying  upon  him  only  one  injunction:  "Be  always  a  Mus- 
covite," that  is  to  say,  stand  always  by  the  old  Russian  party  as 
against  the  new. 

And  he  has.  Next  to  the  Czar,  himself,  Katkoff  had  more  to  do 
with  bringing  on  the  Crimean  War  than  any  other  man  in  Russia. 
He  has  said  things  which  no  other  subject  alive  would  ever  have 
been  permitted  to  say,  and  he  has  written  and  printed  things  which 
would  have  rewarded  any  other  subject  alive  with  Siberia.  What- 
ever he  has  done,  however,  he  has  always  wrote  furiously,  and  ably 
as  well,  against  Germany  and  Austria,  and  in  favor  of  Russia's 
eternal  advance,  if  it  is  only  one  foot  a  day,  toward  Constantinople. 
He  has  had  a  spy  at  every  capital,  and  surprised,  over  and  over 
again,  the  most  important  secrets  of  half  the  crowned  heads  in 
Europe,  ife  was  loved,  petted,  caressed  and  ennobled  by  the  father 
of  the  present  Czar,  and  for  a  time  after  Alexander  II.  met  with  so 
horrible  a  fate,  Katkoff  was  in  high  favor  with  his  successor.  If  he 
is  now  indeed  in  disgrace  it  is  a  mystery,  but  then,  so  many  mys- 
teries exist  in  Russia.  The  night  of  its  despotism  is  sometimes  im- 
penetrable. 

[August  7,  1837.] 

So  Katkoff,  the  great  Russian  editor,  is  dead.  When  death 
stripped  him  of  his  harness  and  flung  it  furiously  aside  in  the  lists 
where  they  had  struggled  month  after  month  for  the  mastery,  it 
rang  out  no  louder  than  the  blow  of  a  wooden  sword-blade  upon  a 
wooden  buckler.  A  brief  paragraph  was  all  that  was  vouchsafed 
him  in  the  American  newspapers  by  way  of  obituary,  and  save  in 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  83 

his  own  land  and  his  own  city  his  passing  away  was  but  little  more 
accounted  of  than  the  folding  of  the  hands  in  sleep. 

When  Mary  died,  the  Mary  whom  the  slanderous  Froude  called 
bloody,  she  said  :  "If  you  will  examine  my  heart  you  will  find  the 
word  Calais  written  thereon."  And  Nelson  said:  "  For  my  epi 
taph  put  this — died  from  a  want  of  frigates."  And  if  Katkoff  s 
heart  could  have  been  examined  also  that,  too,  might  have  had 
stamped  upon  it  indelibly — Constantinople. 

For  fifty  years  his  one  long,  fiery  interminable  text  was  Con- 
stantinople. We  can  never  become  powerful  as  a  nation,  he  has 
thundered  out  ten  thousand  times  through  the  columns  of  his  news- 
paper, until  we  get  to  the  sunshine  and  the  sea.  Do  not  call  the 
Black  Sea  a  sea.  For  half  the  year  it  is  a  lake,  frozen  as  hard  as 
the  solid  earth — aye,  as  the  rock  which  is  crowned  with  the  cannon 
of  Gibraltar.  It  is  the  Mediterranean  which  will  forever  go  to 
make  up  the  warp  and  the  wool  of  Russia's  destiny. 

When  Peter  the  Great  was  dying,  sometimes  delirous  and  some- 
times in  a  stupor,  he  would  have  brief  intervals  when  the  clouds 
would  roll  away  from  that  strangely  perturbed  brain  of  his,  and  the 
shadows  recede  far  enough  to  give  him  a  glimpse  of  the  light  that 
still  abode  upon  all  the  world.  Then  he  would  cry  out  to  those 
about  him  :  ' '  Never  take  your  eyes  from  Constantinople.  I  com- 
mand you  upon  your  loyalty,  your  honor  and  your  love  for  Russia, 
to  never  take  your  eyes  from  Constantinople." 

Perhaps  that  word  might  also  have  been  found  written  upon  his 
heart,  if,  indeed,  this  savage  Tartar — fisherman,  shipbuilder,  archi- 
tect, assassin,  pope,  czar  and  epileptic — ever  had  a  heart. 

To  that  dying  command  of  the  wonderful  barbarian  Katkoff 
devoted  his  whole  life.  Since  it  was  given,  Russia  has  five  separate 
and  distinct  times  come  within  sight  of  the  spires  and  the  minarets 
of  Constantinople,  the  domes  of  its  mosques  and  the  monuments  to 
its  heroes ;  but  banded  Europe,  England  at  the  head,  threw  itself 
in  front  of  the  conquering  columns,  and  stayed  the  hand  that  had 
almost  closed  about  the  prize. 

Baffled,  and  made  aged  in  his  prime  at  each  successive  defeat, 
Katkoff  would  begin  anew  the  preaching  of  another  crusade.  He 
must  have  been  a  statesman,  because  he  was  patient  and  knew  how 
to  wait.  He  must  have  been  a  politician,  because  the  people's  pulse 
to  him  was  always  as  a  barometer.  He  must  have  been  a  leader, 
because  after  he  knelt  at  the  feet  of  the  iron-hearted  Nicholas  for  a 
blessing,  a  pale  faced,  stoop-shouldered,  shrinking,  scarcely  articu- 
late man,  fresh  from  the  academy,  when  he  arose  he  was  a  giant. 
He  must  have  been  a  poet  as  Beranger  was,  because  in  the  white 
heat  and  torment  of  some  of  the  fiercest  charges  at  Plevna,  the 
grenadiers  of  the  guard  went  on  singing  one  of  his  battle  hymns 
set  to  music. 

Furthermore,  and  for  the  benefit  of  those  superlatively  superb' 
patriots  of  our  own  Civil  War  who  seem  to  have  forgotten  everything 
else  connected  with  it  except  a  doctor's  certificate  of  ^disability  and 
a  pension,  Katkoff  was  one  of  the  most  devoted  friends  and  elo- 
quent advocates  the  cause  of  the  Union  had.  It  was  owing  largely 
to  his  counsels  that  the  Russian  fleet  broke  out  of  the  Black  Sea  and 
anchored  in  American  waters,  pending  the  settlement  of  the  Mason- 
Slidell-Trent  affair,  when  England  showed  so  much  passion  and  Mr. 
Seward  so  much  common  sense. 

The  Moscow  Gazette,  Katkoff  s  newspaper,  must  have  been  a 
power  in  Russia.  It  was  the  idol  of  the  old  Muscovite  party,  which 
leaped  full-statured  and  full-armored  from  the  loins  of  Ivan  the 


84  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Terrible.  This  party  never  stirred,  nor  lifted  a  hand,  nor  gave 
forth  responses  to  a  single  appeal  until  Katkoff  passed  along  its  lines 
and  fired  them,  as  a  torch  passing  along  will  fire  a  line  of  ready 
gaslights.  We  know  of  no  newspaper  which  ever  before  had  so 
much  power  and  audacity,  nor  have  we  ever  read  of  one.  Perhaps 
none  could  exist  outside  of  such  a  despotism  as  Russia's.  When  the 
savage  hour  was  on  Nicholas,  none  could  get  to  him  quicker  than 
Katkoff,  nor  soothe  him  more  completely.  More  than  to  any  other 
man,  save  Alexander  II.,  did  the  serfs  owe  their  emancipation.  As 
he  hated  black  slavery,  so  he  hated  white,  and  so  his  voice  was  lifted 
up  against  the  forms  of  it  in  his  own  country.  We  say  the  forms 
of  it  because  the  substance  remains.  There  are  still  the  dungeons, 
the  knout  and  Siberia. 

Prance  also  has  lost  a  devoted  friend.  Ever  since  the  Crimean 
war  he  has  demanded  an  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  with 
France,  offering  Egypt  to  France  if  France  would  help  Russia  to 
Constantinople.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Russian  counsels 
were  back  of  Boulanger,  and  Russian  army  corps  in  readiness  for 
materialization,  Katkoff  could  not  know  that  he  was  leaning  on  a 
reed,  and  that  fine  clothes  and  gold  lace  and  a  cocked  hat  and 
heroic  words  could  never  make  a  general. 

Perhaps  the  great  editor  died  too  soon.  He  might  have  lived  to 
see  the  next  European  conflagration,  to  help  on  which  and  to  lead  up 
to  which  he  has  brought  more  tar,  pitch  and  turpentine  than  any 
other  one  hundred  men  in  all  Europe. 

A  FISH  STORY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  March  17, 1887.] 

There  are  just  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  chances  out  of  one 
thousand  that  nobody  attempted  to  kill  the  Ozar  last  Sunday;  that 
nobody  held  a  dynamite  bomb  in  his  hand  ;  that  the  whole  story  is 
bald  and  barren  and  bogus;  that  whatever  there  is  to  it  at  all  was 
born  of  an  Oriental  imagination,  qualified  by  that  all-pervading  blood 
mania  which  belongs  to  the  absolute  right  of  Russian  despotism. 

Look  for  but  just  a  moment  how  absurd  and  ridiculous  the  cable 
dispatches  are.  It  was  semi-officially  stated  that  an  attempt  might 
be  made  on  the  life  of  the  Czar.  That  several  persons  were  arrested 
near  the  palace  with  dynamite  bombs  in  their  hands.  That  no 
actual  attempt  was  made  to  kill  him.  ^  That  a  bomb  attached  to  a 
cord  was  thrown  in  his  direction,  the  intention  being  to  tighten  a 
string  which  was  fastened  to  its  mechanism,  but  before  the  said 
string  could  be  tightened  the  would-be  assassin,  laboring  under  the 
disadvantages  of  holding  a  very  loose  string  in  his  hand,  was  seized. 
That  the  bomb,  still  with  this  very  loose  string,  was  shaped  like  a 
book.  That  one  of  the  students  arrested  in  connection  with  the 
plot  also  had  a  bomb  shaped  like  a  book.  That  a  woman  with  a 
bomb  in  her  muff,  probably  not  shaped  like  a  book,  was  also 
arrested.  That  on  Monday  every  suspicious  person  who  had  been 
arrested  had  been  released  except  one. 

That  this  one  was  of  short  stature,  and  would  not  talk,  and  that 
the  Czar  himself,  when  he  came  fully  to  understand  what  an  escape 
he  had  made,  cried  bitterly— he  the  great  big  six-foot  booby,  a 
monarch,  and  a  lineal  descendent  of  Peter  the  Great  and  Ivan  the 
Terrible.  What  slush,  what  jargon  and  what  absurdity!  That  the 
Czar  has  many  a  subject  who  would  like  to  kill  him — thousand  upon 
thousands  of  them — no  well-informed  student  of  history  doubts  for 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  85 

a  moment;  but  death  lias  never  yet  been  known  to  make  itself  ridic- 
ulous. Men,  with  dynamite  bombs  in  their  hands  do  not  go  gali- 
vanting  about  the  streets  of  St.  Petersburg.  It  has  never  yet  been 
recorded  that  women  carried  them  about  in  muffs.  Of  course  it  is 
clearly  understood  that  in  many  of  the  sad,  subtle,  and  more  merci- 
less tragedies  of  the  past,  wherever  the  weaving  was  the  darkest  or 
the  most  somber,  its  warp  and  its  woof  could  be  traced  clearly  to  a 
woman's  hand;  but  then  they  always  sang  a  song  or  two  like  Circe 
before  they  slaughtered.  "Was  not  Delilah's  lad  a  pillow  for  Samp- 
son, and  her  dusky  hair  above  him  like  a  canopy,  before  his  own 
long  locks  were  shred  away,  and  he  was  turned  over,  helpless  and 
blinded,  to  his  enemies? 

Finally,  our  faith  is  abiding  that  if  the  Czar  comes  DO  nearer  to 
death  than  he  was  last  'Sunday,  England  will  yet  hear  the  Russian 
drums 

Beat  at  the  gates  of  Candahar. 

PROHIBITION. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  lo,  1887]. 

In  voting  to  indefinitely  postpone  all  prohibition  legislation — • 
call  it  by  the  name  of  submission,  if  you  please,  that  sleek,  sly, 
slinking  wolf,  with  the  soft  wool  of  the  best  of  the  flock  yet  thick 
in  its  teeth — the  Missouri  senate  has  done  well.  It  took  by  the 
throat  the  most  vicious  and  disastrous  species  of  legislation  ever 
introduced  into  a  Democratic  general  assembly,  and  strangled  it 
with  as  little  compunction  of  conscience  as  if  it  had  been  a  snake. 
In  politics, as  in  inundations,  what  a  blessed  thing  it  is  sometimes  to 
have  a  breakwater.  The  high,  full,  serene  courage  of  conviction  is 
rare  in  the  land,  and  is,  perhaps,  growing  rarer.  Demagogy— that 
accursed  ulcer  which  has  eaten  the  life  out  of  more  republics  than 
Leonid  as  had  Greeks  to  defend  the  pass  of  Thermopylae — has  as- 
sailed Missouri  fiercely  of  late,  and  swept  over  too  many  of  its  fair 
and  fertile  political  places.  To  every  ism  which  came  along  too 
many  sturdy  old  Democrats  knelt  and  sought  to  turn  away  its  wrath 
as  if  it  had  been  a  murdering  giant.  To  a  man  upon  his  knees  every 
attacking  enemy  is  a  giant.  Wnat  was  greatly  needed  in  the  pres- 
ent prohibition  crisis  was  simple  to  make  the  Democrats  get  up  from 
an  attitude  which  was  cowardly,  cringing  and  degrading.  They 
knew  that  submission  meant  prohibition,  and  that  prohibition  would 
make  out  of  the  people  of  the  State  a  people  of  liars,  sneaks  and 
hypocrites.  They  knew  also  further  that  prohibition  did  not  prohibit. 

They  knew  also  still  further  that  if  prohibition  prevailed  in 
Missouri — even  though  qualified,  as  in  Kansas,  by  the  obsequious 
probate  judge  and  the  all-accommodating  and  all-embracing 
drugstore — the  State  would  be  torn  from  its  Democratic  moorings 
and  given  over  rudderless  and  dismasted,  to  the  pirates  of  the 
greedy  and  remorseless  opposition.  They  saw  women — whose 
babies  at  home  were  crying  for  the  milk  of  maternal  breasts,  and 
whose  dirty  and  unkept  bodies  pleaded  for  the  work  of  maternal 
hands — haunting  the  lobbies  of  the  Legislature,  glib  with  their  little 
hoard  of  Mayflower  maxims,  preaching  down  Missouri  laws  and 
habits  and  customs,  and  smiling  the  sweet,  elephantine  smile  of  the 
frowzy  female  reformer  every  time  some  old  one-gallus  Democrat 
would  become  thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  new  religion,  and 
yell  for  more  prohibition  straw  about  the  mourner's  bench  as  though 
he  were  in  a  Sam  Jones'  circus,  with  the  sisters  all  a  shouting,  and 


86  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

the  new  recruits  beating  their  breasts  and  tearing  their  hair,  as 
though  the  "hell  serpents"  had  them  already,  even  as  they  had  old 
Parson  Bullen  when  Sut  Lovingood  poked  the  lizards  up  the  two 
legs  of  his  breeches.  They  read  a  little  pamphlet — scattered  thicker 
than  the  vine  leaves  were  ever  scattered  by  the  nymphs  of  Bacchus, 
when  naked  to  the  knees  they  trampled  the  grapes  of  the  God-given 
vintage — a  pamphlet  wherein  was  retailed  all  the  partisan  slanders 
upon  "poor  old  Missouri,"  and  wherein  also  might  be  found  the 
false  and  somewhat  startling  assertion  that  whatever  of  wealth, 
civilization  and  development  might  be  contained  in  the  full  flow  of 
a  flood  tide  of  emigration  was  all  passing  by  ' '  drunken  and  whisky 
Missouri"  and  finding  a  sure  and  contended  lodgment  in  sober, 
pious  and  prohibition  Iowa  and  Kansas. 

Too  many  Democrats,  we  say,  saw  all  these  things,  and  heard 
all  these  things,  and  read  all  these  things,  and  yet  they  never  whim- 
pered ;  the  unfortunates,  they  did  worse ;  they  indorsed  everything 
said  to  the  detriment  of  Missouri,  because  they  trailed  at  the  bedrag- 
gled skirts  of  the  women  who  had  the  slanders  printed,  and  rocked 
and  crooned  over  the  cradle  in  a  lullaby  voice  that  might  have  made 
a  panther  dumb,  wherein  was  jabbering  that  bastard  and  misbegot- 
ten infant  called  submission.  But  the  Democratic  Senate  came  to 
the  rescue  and  tumbled  about  the  cars  of  its  builders  and  into  a  vast 
mass  of  rubbish  all  the  sham,  pretense,  lying-in-wait,  deceit,  false- 
hood, and  hypocrisjr  of  a  dozen  accumulated  years  of  snuffle  and 
cant  and  wheeze.  It  only  needed  some  such  stroke  as  this — bold, 
umistakable  and  patriotic — to  bring  the  timid  and  the  wavering 
Democrats  everywhere  to  their  senses,  to  make  them  grope  again 
through  the  darkness  of  their  temporary  betrayal  until  they  find  the 
old  landmarks  of  the  party  ,to  go  again  to  the  teachings  of  the  fathers 
as  to  an  altar,  there  to  confess  their  sins,  abjure  the  disreputable 
political  associates  of  the  new  faith  and  plead  to  the  august  shade  of 
him  who  wrote  our  Magna  Charta  for  the  peace  that  can  only  come 
from  a  perfect  absolution. 

As  for  the  Times,  it  stands  to-day  where  it  has  alwaysstood,  and 
where  it  stood  in  its  declaration  of  principles  years  ago — utterly 
opposed  to  every  form  and  species  of  prohibition.  High  license  and 
local  option  is  its  platform  at  the  present,  just  as  it  has  been  from 
the  beginning.  It  believes  in  temperance  as  much  as  it  believes  in 
the  laws  which  govern,  regulate  and  protect  human  society.  It 
believes  that  temperance  should  begin  at  the  fireside;  that  parents 
should  teach  it  to  their  children;  that  the  preachers  of  the  gospel 
should  embody  it  in  their  sermons,  and  insist  upon  it  in  all  their 
devout  and  holy  ministrations;  that  local  enactments  should  become 
its  intelligent  ally;  that  the  saloon  should  not  be  driven  from  the 
street  to  the  private  residence;  that  alcohol  drinking  may  be  regu- 
lated, but  never  extirpated;  that  civilization  brings  with  it  certain 
evils  or  vices  which  have  to  be  dealt  with  in  a  spirit  of  tolerant,  not 
of  violent,  firmness  or  aggression,  and  that  where  history,  illustra- 
tion, comparison  and  example  all  teach  us  that  prohibition  does  not 
prohibit,  it  would  be  a  species  of  folly  but  little  better  than  a  crime 
to  attempt  its  introduction  into  a  State,  the  large  majority  of  whose 
people  hate  the  very  sources  from  which  it  sprang,  and  who  are  not 
yet  prepared  to  swap  the  principles  of  a  lifetime  for  smuggled  beer 
and  drug-store  whisky.  

[May  16, 1887.] 

A  valued  correspondent  writes  to  know  what  the  chances  are 
for  the  prohibitionists  to  carry  Texas,  and  to  ask  if  the  support  ren- 


MISCELLANEOUS  WHITINGS.  87 

dered  to  them  by  Senator  Reagan  will  not  help  them  in  a  greater 
degree  than  could  othewise  have  been  expected. 

The  prohibitionists  never  had  any  chances  in  Texas  to  begin 
with,  and  it  is  altogether  useless  to  speculate  upon  them  now.  Never 
having  existed,  there  is  nothing  to  discuss.  Texas  is  a  peculiar 
State  in  many  ways.  It  has  three  zones,  three  climates,  three  ter- 
ritorial empires,  and  three  world  staples — sugar,  cotton  and  cattle. 

One  would  scarcely  suppose  so,  but  Texas  is  also  an  exceedingly 
cosmopolitan  State  ;  made  so  by  its  very  immensity.  Tolerance  is 
indigenous  there  because  of  that  exalted  idea  of  personal  or  individ- 
ual freedom  which  finds  its  highest  type  and  its  most  exalted 
expression  in  range,  latitude,  boundlessness.  Liberty  exists  there 
because  of  its  immense  cattle  ranches  and  grazing  grounds. 

To  find  prohibition  in  its  perfect  form  and  essence  one  must  go 
where  population  is  concentrated.  Where  the  mases  are  dense 
enough  to  hunt  for  a  master,  as  all  dense  masses  do.  Where  dema- 
gogues swarm,  forage  and  litter.  Where  familiarity  breeds  con- 
tempt and  contempt  expresses  itself  in  upheaval.  Where  anything 
that  is  stable  is  hateful,  and  where  the  thing  called  progress  is  inter- 
preted to  mean  nobody's  rights  but  your  own.  Where  civilization 
can  neither  advance  nor  retreat,  and  where,  for  the  want  of  some 
sort  of  exercise  to  prevent  social  putridity,  it  is  often  found  avail- 
able to  resort  to  proscriptive  politics.  Prohibition  thrives  in  Maine 
because  its  administrative  life  is  dank,  stagnant,  finished  ,  in  Iowa, 
because  its  life  is  that  of  Plymouth  rock — harsh,  sterile, proselyting, 
greedy  for  strife  ;  in  Kansas,  because  its  life  is  of  the  Mayflower — 
canting^ morose,  insincere  and  brutal;  if  each  could  not  war  on 
whisky  it  would  be  on  something  else.  The  race  to  which  eithtr 
belongs  in  all  the  world's  history  has  been  a  race  of  bigotry,  psalm- 
singing  and  spoils. 

Prohibition  in  Texas  would  be  the  same  as  aloes  in  sugar  or 
cologne  in  a  pig  pen — an  absurd  anachronism.  When  a  man  in 
Texas  goes  to  fooling  with  his  neighbor's  landmark,  they  put  him  to 
death.  In  Iowa  they  make  him  either  a  judge  or  a  preacher.  When 
a  man  in  Texas  begins  to  prescribe  certain  fixed  metes  and  bounds 
wherein  his  neighbor  shall  walk  and  conduct  himself,  he  is  either 
lassoed  or  scalped.  In  Kansas,  after  running  away  with  somebody 
else's  wife,  he  would  be  sent  to  congress.  Hence,  our  valued  cor- 
respondent can  readily  see  what  sort  of  a  show  the  average  prohibi- 
tionist would  have  in  Texas. 

And  Senator  Reagan?  And  Senator  Reagan's  influence? 
Neither  the  man  nor  his  influence,  in  the  sense  that  he  could  make 
one  hair  of  the  prohibition  head  in  Texas  either  white  or  black,  is 
worth  the  price  of  a  mustang  pony.  He  is  a  good  soul  enough,  but 
he  labors  under  one  disadvantage — that  of  not  knowing  that  he  does 
not  amount  to  anything.  He  is  one  of  Texas'  fossils  left  over  from 
the  Southern  Confederacy.  Should  he  get  drowned  in  the  Brazos, 
his  contiguous  water  course,  his  neighbors  as  a  mass  would  look  up 
stream  for  his  body.  As  a  pre-Adamite  he  will  do  just  about  as 
well  as  the  Alamo,  with  this  difference  in  favor  of  the  Alamo — it 
has  a  substantial  fence  around  it.  To  size  up  Reagan  in  the  light 
of  his  own  self-appreciation  and  then  fencehim  round  would  require 
a  county.  Hence  they  just  let  him  run  at  large,  a  powerful  squealer, 
but  quite  harmless. 


88  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS.' 

ON  DEMOCRACY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  January  24, 1887.] 
TO  BE   KILLED   AGAIN. 

Prophets  of  evil  are  abroad  in  the  land: 

First  a  speck  and  then  a  vulture, 
Till  the  air  is  dark  with  pinions. 

Everywhere  in  the  darkness  there  can  be  heard  the  flapping  of 
invisible  wings  and  the  whetting  of  insatiable  beaks.  It  is  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  which  is  to  be  slaughtered  again  and  picked  to  the 
bones.  t  And  by  whom?  By  what  process?  Through  what  sort  of 
revolutionary  uprising  or  upheaval? 

The  new  labor  party,  already  as  good  as  formed,  is  to  be  the 
butcher,  a  white  apron  above  its  paunch  and  its  feet  to  the  knees 
dabbled  in  great  pools  of  blood.  The  republican  orators  have 
decreed  it.  The  Republican  newspapers  have  proclaimed  it.  All 
that  servile  crowd  of  camp  followers,  who  find  private  benefit  in 
public  disorders  and  who  prefer  the  favor  of  a  master  to  the  inex- 
orable equality  of  the  law,  are  praying  for  it  hourly.  Elaine  has 
declared  it  with  something  of  the  apocalyptic  vision  the  pirate  had 
when  he  saw  in  his  dreams  a  Spanish  galleon  beating  up  from  the 
Indies  with  a  clear  king's  ransom  in  silver^and  gold. 

Well,  the  old  thing  called  the  Democratic  party  has  been  con- 
siderably bruised  and  battered  up  in  its  day  and  generation.  It  has 
been  proscribed,  bedeviled,  shot  at,  carpet-bagged,  pro-consuled, 
hunted  up  one  side  of  the  country  and  down  another;  but  when 
they  came  with  a  coffin  to  carry  away  the  corpse  the  corpse  was 
not  forthcoming.  All  of  its  long  and  memorable  life  it  has  been 
always  just  on  the  eve  of  destruction.  Federalism  was  to  put  it  to 
death.  Federalism  was  buried  in  the  grave  of  the  elder  Adams. 

The  Whig  party — its  pure,  its  true  and  its  strongest  opponent 
— came  next  to  die  with  its  mighty  leader,  Clay.  Knownothingism 
came  next,  fighting  under  the  black  banner  of  religious  intolerance, 
but  Virginia,  putting  into  the  hands  of  Henry  A.  Wise  her  spotless 
Democratic  banner,  slew  the  monster  at  the  very  gates  of  liberty. 

Then  the  war  came,  and  the  very  blackness  of  darkness  swept 
over  the  fortunes  of  the  Democracy.  Out  of  the  white  heat  and 
torment  of  that  war  the  Republican  party  seized  upon  the  North  in 
the  name  of  patriotism,  and  held  it  for  the  spoils  of  a  savage 
partisan  vengeance.  The  South  had  never  a  limb  that  did  not 
wear  a  shackle  For  twenty-four  long,  weary,  hungry,  disconso- 
late years  the  Democratic  party  dragged  its  crippled  body  up 
to  the  defense  of  the  Constitution,  only  to  be  beaten  back  or  beaten 
down  by  the  Republican  organization,  rioting  in  ^  the  excess  of 
colossal  strength,  drilled  like  a  regiment  and  despotic  like  an  army. 
True,  within  the  period  named  Mr.  Tilden  was  elected  president, 
but  the  victory  was  a  hateful  one,  because  it  was  torn  from  the 
hands  of  those  who  had  won  it  without  an  effort  at  defense  or  even 
a  suggestion  of  protest  or  resistance.  Four  years  later  Garfield — 
buttressed  upon  the  money  power,  and  the  whole  tremendous 
influence  of  the  Federal  patronage  machine — defeated  Hancock,  and 
made  the  night  darker  and  darker  for  the  Democracy.  It  rallied, 
however.  Patched  as  best  it  could  its  tattered  old  garments. 
Dressed  as  best  it  could  its  battered  old  ranks.  Gathered  as  best  it 
could  about  its  ragged  old  banner>  and  rushed  once  more  to  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  89 

asasult  upon  Radicalism  as  though  Jefferson  had  written  its  platform 
and  Jackson  were  leading  its  columns  to  the  fight.  This  time  the 
hero  was  destimed  to  enjoy  the  victory  and  the  martyr  to  wear  the 
crown.  Not  a  hand  was  lifted  to  stay  the  inauguration  of  Cleve- 
land. After  renewing  its  youth  the  party  was  back  again  in  the 
house  of  its  father — serene,  unconquerable,  and  healed  of  all  of  its 
grievous  and  manifold  wounds,  even  as  Lazarus  was  healed  in  the 
bosom  of  Abraham. 

While  attempting  to  prove  the  indestructibility  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  from  the  brief  history  we  have  given  of  the  organiza- 
tions it  has  successfully  encountered,  the  sacrifices  it  has  made  and 
the  sufferings  it  has  heroically  endured,  we  have  said  nothing  of  the 
no  less  formidable  enemies  it  has  had  to  grapple  within  many  of  the 
States.  Whatever  sprang  up  in  the  shape  of  an  ism,  a  craze,  or  a 
local  uprising,  there  was  the  Democratic  party,  square  in  the  breach, 
fighting  the  one  long,  eternal  fight  for  the  repose  and  the  integrity 
of  the  national  organization.  It  might  be  greenbackism,  or  tad- 
poleism,  or  prohibition,  or  whatever  other  name  these  emeutes  went 
by,  the  party  set  its  face  against  them  like  a  flint,  and  sooner  or 
later  carted  them  all  away  to  the  potter's  field,  many  a  time  without 
even  a  shroud  or  a  coffin.  And  now  the  cry  is  that  organized  labor 
is  to  kill  the  Democratic  party.  What  for,  in  the  name  of  common 
sense  and  the  simplest  instincts  of  common  self  protection?  If  the 
Democratic  party  from  the  very  first  hour  of  its  creation  up  to  the 
present  hour  has  not  been  the  friend  of  the  laboring  man,  then  kill 
it.  If  it  has  not,  both  in  and  out  of  Congress,  fought  every  kind  and 
species  of  monopoly,  kill  it.  If  it  has  not  stood  as  a  wall  against 
every  land  grant,  grab  or  steal,  and  every  extravagant  appropriation, 
kill  it.  If  it  has  not  been  a  constitutional  party  in  every  bone  and 
fiber,  seeking  to  preserve  home  rule  and  States'  rights  in  their  very 
essence  and  purity,  without  which  no  republic  can  be  long  free, 
kill  it.  If,  in  short,  it  has  not  been  the  steadfast  and  unselfish  friend 
of  the  oppressed,  no  matter  by  whom,  or  how,  or  in  what  fashion, 
kill  it.  But  if ,  after  having  been  all  these  things,  there  is  a  single 
honest  workingman  to-day  in  the  country  who  would  vote  to  destroy 
the  Democratic  party,  that  same  workingman  would  murder  his 
father.  Parricide  is  parricide,  whether  political  or  social,  and  a 
party  of  parricides  is  as  impossible  in  America  as  that  an  immacu- 
late soul,  washed  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  should  not  enter 
heaven. 

NOT  MEN  ENTIRELY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  March  8, 1887.] 

In  adversity  the  attitude  of  the  Democratic  party  was  superb.  In 
six  desperate  presidential  campaigns  did  it  drag  its  battered  and 
crippled  old  limbs  up  to  an  assault  upon  the  Republican  party — that 
splendidly  organized  party  born  of  the  Civil  War. the  spoiled  child  of 
pillage  and  the  sword,  intrenched  in  the  treasury,  claiming  to  own 
the  nation  by  the  divine  right  of  Appomattox  Court  House,  hobnob- 
bing with  God  Almighty  in  its  platforms,and  calling  Him  boss, with 
the  reconstruction  aegis  over  it  as  a  yellow  flag  over  a  hospital — six 
times,  we  say,  did  the  Democracy  rush  to  the  fight,  successful  only 
in  its  last  encounter  with  the  giant  of  Radicalism.  It  was  a  gaunt 
and  grizzled  old  thing,  this  Democratic  party.  It  had  hungered  and 
thirsted  for  a  long  time.  It  had  laid  out  of  nights,  and  slept  in  corn 
shocks,  and  gone  barefooted  many  times,  and  had  cockleburrs  in  its 
hair,  and  needed  quinine  powerful  bad  for  its  "ager  shake,"  and 


90  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

spoke  a  strange  gibberish  about  the  Constitution,  and  wanted  to 
know  where  its  little  Meenie,  called  States'  rights,  was ;  but,  God 
bless  it !  it  was  the  same  old  glorious  Rip  at  heart  who  had  gone  up 
into  the  mountain,  singing  like  a  school  boy  and  jocund  like  a 
reveler. 

And  now  what?  Nothing,  except  that  it  has  got  fat  again.  In 
renewing  its  youth  it  has  become  somewhat  obstreperous.  The  old 
house  appears  to  be  a  little  bit  circumscribed.  The  old  political 
family  Bible  appears  to  have  been  revised.  Some  of  its  chapters 
appear  to  have  been  interpolated  with  chapters  on  prohibition.  The 
niche  where  once  stood  the  radiant  figure  of  the  Constitution  is  filled 
with  a  gutta  percha  thing,  chiseled  by  the  hands  of  congressional 
jobbers,  and  made  to  cover  every  appropriation  from  a  silk  milch 
cow  up  to  an  ironclad  which  can  not  go  to  sea.  As  for  States'  rights, 
an  overflowing  public  treasury  put  its  velvet  paw  upon  it,  and  ever 
since  the  contact  it  has  purred  at  the  feet  of  power  as  the  little 
white  mice  purred  and  purred  in  the  velvety  hands  of  Count  Fosco. 
Many  saints  have  been  persecuted  and  many  martyrs  stoned.  In 
short,  the  Democratic  party  appears  to  be  in  a  transition  period— 
appears  to  be  about  changing  front  in  presence  of  the  enemy — some- 
thing which  Hannibal  never  attempted  and  which  Bonaparte  dared 
not  do  but  thrice  in  his  lifetime. 

This  condition  of  things,  however,  is  not  calculated  to  encour- 
age the  opposition  so  much  as  to  make  its  own  old  guard  lukewarm 
or  indifferent.  The  old  Democratic  party  regarded  the  individual  as 
the  unit  of  society,  upon  the  integrity  of  which  society  depended 
wholly.  The  personal  liberty  of  the  citizen.  Jefferson  and  his 
associates  drove  the  Federal  party  out  of  power  on  this  issue,  which 
was  fundamental  in  the  struggle  which  gave  us  our  free  government, 
and  which  produced  the  Constitution.  As  was  the  citizen  so  was  the 
State.  The  State  began  at  the  family.  Children  were  taught  at  the 
fireside  to  love  it,  to  fight  for  it,  to  obeys  its  laws,  to  revere  its 
institutions  and  to  preserve  for  it  every  right  guaranteed  by  the  con- 
stitution. Hence  the  doctrine  of  States'^  rights,  which  once  made 
the  Democracy  so  dear  to  the  people.  Which  gave  to  it  its  magnifi- 
cent staying  qualities,  which  enabled  it  to  be  grand  in  victory  and 
august  in  defeat,  and  which,  as  contradistinguished  from  Federalism 
or  centralization,  made  it  essentially  the  party  of  the  poor  man  and 
the  pride  of  every  true  lover  of  liberty  in  the  whole  land. 

If  it  would  still  retain  its  hold  upon  the  country  it  must  come 
back  to  first  principles.  It  must  show  that  it  is  fit  to  reign  by  stamp- 
ing upon  its  administration  the  features  of  the  great  organic  law 
under  which  it  was  created.  To  do  this  it  must  be  economical  in  the 
handling  of  public  money.  It  must  get  rid  of  the  idea,  as  soon  as 
possible,  that  this  is  a  paternal  government,  and  that  whenever  there 
is  either  a  flood,  a  drouth,  a  murrain  among  cattle,  a  splenetic  fever, 
or  a  fever  of  any  sort,  the  only  cure  is  to  open  the  treasury  doors. 

It  must  extirpate  mugwumpery  in  its  own  ranks  by  putting  a 
Simon-pure  Democrat  in  every  Federal  office  in  the  United  States. 
It  must  go  oftener  to  the  shrine  of  Andrew  Jackson  and  less  to  the 
living  presence  of  those  independent  fellows  who  strive  a  lifetime  to 
take  the  backbone  out  of  American  politics  and  invent  new  names 
for  party  fealty,  truth  and  devotion. 

There  is  yet  plenty  of  time  to  do  all  these  things,  but  they  must 
be  done  thoroughly  and  in  perfect  order.  The  place  to  begin  is  in 
the  next  Congress.  The  Democrats  have  a  majority  in  the  House, 
and  upon  the  work  of  this  majority  much  will  depend  that  is  not 
now  believed  in  or  even  imagined. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  91 

EYERY  TUB  ON  ITS  OWN  BOTTOM. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  17,  1887.] 

It  makes  not  one  particle  of  difference  whether  the  labor  party 
does  or  does  not  put  a  presidential  ticket  in  the  field.  We  take  it 
for  granted  that  it  will.  Or  the  Henry  George  party.  We  take  it 
for  granted  that  it  will.  Or  the  prohibition  party.  We  take  it  for 
granted  that  it  will;  but  it  does  make  a  wonderful  sight  of  differ 
ence  what  the  Democratie  party  proposes  to  do  in  the  premises. 

Let  these  various  organizations  do  as  they  please.  This  is  a  free 
country,  and  the  greater  the  multiplicity  of  parties,  we  suppose,  the 
greater  the  magnitude  of  personal  or  political  liberty.  Parties  are 
everything  in  a  republic.  In  France  there  are  some  twenty  odd, 
probably. 

However,  all  this,  the  Democratic  party  has  only  itself  to 
depend  upon  primarily  for  success  in  1888.  Some  great  overmas- 
tering principle  must  be  enunciated  by  it,  and  so  emphasized  as  to 
carry  conviction  home  with  it  and  make  it  also  fragrant  and  allur- 
ing with  the  truth.  Nothing  that  is  fast-and-lpose,  hot-or-cold,  may- 
be-so-yes  or  may-be-so-no  can  live  an  hour  in  the  winds  and  the 
storms  of  the  next  campaign.  'Questions  have  arisen  which  have 
got  to  be  answered,  and  the  Democratic  party  must  give  its  answer 
in  such  a  way  as  will  make  the  dust  of  old  Andrew  Jackson  quicken 
and  stir  in  its  last  resting  place.  Platforms  generally  are  milk  and 
cider.  They  mean  broadcloth  or  blue  jeans.  Big  sunflowers  or 
scarlet  japonicabuds.  Something  that  is  soft,  pliant  and  easy  to 
handle.  Something  that  suggests: 

"Let  me  tangle  my  hand  in  your  hair,  Jeane*te; 
It  is  soft  as  the  floss  of  the  silk,  my  pet." 

But  in  the  next  national  Democratic  platform  there  must  be 
two  or  three  planks  which  need  to  be  all  iron.  No  metaphor.  No 
lullaby  rhetoric,  singing  a  soft,  low  song  at  the  cradle  of  interpreta- 
tion. ]tfo  apple  plucked  and  pitched  into  the  committee  on  resolu- 
tions by  Henry  Watterson  to  be  pared  by  Mr.  Randall  until  it  might 
be  a  peach,  or  a  quince,  or  an  ivory  billiard  ball.  Our  country  at 
last  has  come  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  few  words  and  many 
deeds.  The  prayers  now  put  up  must  be  like  Sir  Richard  Waller's 
riding  down  to  Naseby:  "O,  Lord !  Thou  knowest  how  busy  I  must 
be  this  day.  If  I  forget  Thee,  do  Thou  not  forget  me.  March  on, 
boys." 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  Democratic  party  to  do  aught  else 
except  to  deal  frankly  and  justly  with  the  people.  In  many  directions 
they  seem  somewhat  bewildered.  Beset  by  a  multitude  of  recruiting 
officers  for  all  sorts  of  organization,  they  simply  need  to  be  made 
able  to  lay  hands  upon  Democracy.  Therefore  its  organization  must 
be  perfect;  its  discipline  of  the  old  days;  its  platform  the^law  and 
the  gospel;  its  declarations  patriotic  but  adamant,  and  its  every 
movement  that  of  something  which  is  being  led  and  guided  by  the 
Constitution. 

Three  times  in  the  history  of  this  republic  has  the  Democratic 
party  prevented  a  change  in  its  present  form  of  government.  As  for 
labor  it  has  given  it  everything  it  now  possesses  in  the  way  of  hearty 
recognition,  liberal  laws  and  strong  safeguards  to  prevent  the  least 
encroachment.  Since  It  was  created  it  has  been  especially  the  party 
of  the  poor  man  and  the  stranger.  It  has  nothing  to  fear  from  hon- 
est labor,  although  there  may  be  fifty  so-called  labor  tickets  in  the 


92  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

field,  and  all  working  against  it.  Let  all  things  else  go  except  a  full 
and  perfect  reliance  upon  its  own  resources.  Call  back  its  old  time 
energy  and  discipline,  and  the  people  will  do  the  rest. 

BOURBON  DEMOCRACY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  22, 1888.] 

One  hears  much  of  this  term  lately.  It  is  as  glib  in  the  mouths 
of  certain  republican  men  and  newspapers  as  the  forked  tongue  in 
the  mouth  of  a  snake.  And  just  as  glibly  does  it  dart  in  and  out, 
by  its  rapidity  something  like  a  nerve  that  jumps  and  throbs  under 
galvanism,  and  something  like  a  cut-throat  in  ambush  where  the 
hedge  is  thickest,  or  the  road  the  most  lonely  and  God-forsaken. 

In  their  estimation  Bourbon  Democracy  means  to  pull  dowji ; 
burn  school-houses;  retrograde;  have  here  and  there  a  touch  of 
the  thumb-screw;  the  rack  also  upon  occasions;  proscription  always; 
guerrillas  out  in  the  underbrush;  all  the  better  if  a  few  train 
robbers  ride  and  raid;  breaking  into  the  strong  places  where  the 
public  money  is  kept;  chaos;  no  more  law  and  order;  no  more 
jails;  the  Rebels  in  the  saddle;  and  no  pitch  hot  in  any  available 
direction. 

The  truth  about  Bourbonism  in  Missouri  is  just  this:  It  got 
its  name  from  the  fact  that  it  would  not  steal  in  the  old  days, 
nor  disfranchise,  nor  break  into  meeting-houses  to  deprive  other 
denominations  of  their  property,  nor  confiscate  railroads,  nor  run 
away  with  county  funds,  nor  be  generally  unclean,  despicable  and 
dishonest. 

True,  a  Bourbon  Democrat  delighted  in  the  past.  He  believed 
in  the  old-fashioned  way  of  doing  things.  He  lived  in  peace  with 
his  neighbors.  He  burnt  neither  their  hay,  their  "wheat  nor  their 
straw  stacks.  Nor  was  one  ever  known  to  break  into  a  smoke-house. 
He  believed  in  the  family,  and  taught  his  children  to  rely  upon  it 
as  the  basis  of  all  society,  the  foundation  upon  which  the  State  rested, 
the  bulwark  against  which  all  the  Cossacks  in  the  world  tould  not 
prevail  when  they  came  to  attack  civil  and  religious  liberty.  He 
liked  his  dram  and  got  the  best  that  was  going.  No  Puritanical 
processes  invaded  his  sanctuary,  preaching  free  love  on  the  one  hand 
and  prohibition  on  the  other.  Virtue  was  a  shrine  at  which  all 
the  brave  Missourians  worshiped.  The  seducer,  before  the  lust  had 
died  out  of  his  heart,  died  on  his  own  dunghill. 

The  Bourbon  Democrat  was  also  a  pastoral  American.  He 
hunted,  fished,  plowed,  loved  the  "woods,  laughed  and  sang  at  his 
work,  indulged  much  in  reverie,  which  is  the  parent  of  sadness,  did 
not  know  how  to  lie,  never  knew  the  road  to  Canada  with  his  stolen 
goods  and  chattels,  would  have  put  his  wife  or  daughter  to  death 
before  permitting  either  to  work  or.  vote  at  the  polls,  the  one  with  the 
straddle  or  the  waddle  of  an  alligator  on  land,  the  other  with  the 
leer  or  the  musky  smell  of  the  street  walker. 

What  a  happy  commonwealth,  this  great  one  of  ours!  Peace, 
plenty,  prosperity,  happiness,  truth,  manhood,  courage,  money^  in 
bank,  thoroughbreds  in  pastures,  the  devil  beyond  the'  Alleghanies, 
and  each  man's  fireside  his  altar  and  his  citadel. 

One  day  the  sky  grew  suddenly  black  as  one  of  Pharoah's 
Egyptian  midnights.  In  the  darkness  there  were  heard  the  footsteps 
of  men  in  motion.  The  travail  of  civil  war  was  at  hand  and  por- 
tentious  births  came  every  where  to  the  surface.  The  face  of  Mis- 
souri changed  as  suddenly  as  the  maps  Napoleon  used  to  make  of 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  93 

Europe  when  he  would  inundate  it  like  a  mountain  torrent  from  the 
Rhine  to  the  Vistula.  Strange  animals  got  in.  A  hybrid  thing, 
called  a  registrar,  was  it  not — one-half  Bashi  Bazouk  and  the  other 
half  horse  stealer  or  blackmailer,  went  about  with  his  little  thing- 
gum-bo  D  ballot  boxes  to  cheat,  to  rob,  to  ensnare,  to  betray,  to  dis- 
franchise the  Bourbon  Democrats.  These  registrars  had  armed 
guards.  They  knew  a  mule  on  the  other  side  of  a  mountain.  Fine, 
fat  Durhams  made  their  mouths  so  water  as  to  cause  one  to  think 
mad  dogs  had  been  about.  It  was  not  the  drooling  and  dripping  of 
mercury,  but  the  vims  of  carpet-baggery,  robbery  and  innate  scoun- 
drelism.  In  this  condition  this  salivation  was  saturnalia. 

The  man  who  would  not  take  the  oath  to  forswear  his  people, 
his  kindred  and  his  blood  was  a  Bourbon  Democrat.  So  also  was 
the  man  who  defended  his  stable  with  a  shotgun.  So  also  were  the 
men  Bourbon  Democrats  who  organized  a  body-guard  for  Frank 
Blair  when  on  his  blessed  tour  of  enfranchisement,  and  smote  the 
beggars  and  the  bulldozers  hip  and  thigh  at  Warrensburg  and  at 
Marshall.  So  also  were  all  the  people  who  would  not  put  collars 
on  their  necks  and  chains  around  their  ankles. 

Then  there  came  another  day  when  all  this  hierarchy  of  looters, 
proscriptionists  and  thieves  was  tumbled  down  in  one  working  and 
squirming  mass  together.  The  blue-bottle  flies  had  found  their 
carrion,  and  from  that  hour  to  this  the  carcass  has  never  known  a 
resurrection. 

Hence,  when  a  term  is  to  be  applied  of  particular  odium,  as  is 
supposed  by  some  of  these  leavings  of  the  old  carpet-bag  days,  the 
person  so  banded  against  is  called  a  Bourbon  Democrat.  Hence  also 
the  virulence  with  which  Morehouse  is  being  attacked,  and  Glover 
and  Claiborne  and  many  more  who  are  in  the  field  as  candidates 
upon  the  Democratic  ticket. 

Very  well!  It  is  an  honor  higher  than  the  grand  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  itself.  Hunted,  proscribed,  shot  at,  robbed,  over- 
ridden, swallowed  up,  who  is  on  top  to-day?  The  Bourbons,  bless 
God,  as  they  are  understood  to  be  by  their  Republican  re  vilers.  And 
look  at  the  hands  of  these  very  same  Bourbons.  Are  they  not 
clean?  They  never  stole  a  railroad  nor  appropriated  money  that 
belonged  to  some  office  of  trust  and  responsibility;  never  broke 
into  churches,  never  murdered  a  righteous  minister  of  the  gospel, 
never  drove  off  other  people's  mules,  horses,  oxen,  sheep,  hogs  and 
cattle  in  droves,  never  tore  jewelry  from  the  ears  and  fingers  of 
women;  but  it  is  on  top,  we  tell  you,  with  victory  on  every  one  of 
its  banners  which  flies  to  the  wind,  a  president  in  the  "White  House 
and  Elaine,  the  speckled  gentleman,  betwixt  the  devil  and  the  deep 
sea. 

A  VERY  PLAIN  REMEDY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  26,  1889.] 

Representative  Democrats  from  all  portions  of  the  State  have 
just  met  in  St.  Louis  to  consider  the  ways  and  means  of  a  practical 
and  thorough  reorganization  of  the  party.  Any  political  caucus  or 
convention  which  the  Hon.  Champ  Clark,  of  Pike  county,  presides 
over  and  addresses,  commends  itself  at  once  not  alone  to  the  con- 
fidence but  to  the  active  support  of  the  entire  Democracy  of  Missouri. 
Young  as  he  is,  he  is  possessed  of  that  kind  of  progressive  ardor  and 
all  prevading  faith  which  removes  mountains.  In  the  lares  and  pen- 
ates  of  his  political  household  there  are  only  the  gods  of  his  fathers. 

The  results  of  the  late  election  showed  all  too  plainly  that  the 


94  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Democratic  party  in  Missouri  -was  sick — sick  enough  to  call  in  a 
doctor.  Its  malady  came  from  a  tampering  with  too  many  poisons. 
It  had  wandered  iar  afield  from  the  spot  where  stood  many  of  its 
ancient  landmarks.  It  had  stopped  too  long  to  dally  with  Circe, and 
all  too  long  to  make  love  to  the  Sirens.  Wolf  tracks  might  be  seen 
all  about  its  premises.  Many  of  its  gods  were  mere  pinchbeck  or 
putty.  Its  leadership  went  by  the  name  of  nincompoopery  or  no 
good.  It  was  everything  for  men  and  nothing  for  principle.  The 
old  guard  was  forced  in  many  instances  to  give  place  to  conscripts. 
About  many  of  the  camp  tires  there  was  either  dearth,  desolation  or 
absolute  night.  Some  of  its  martyrs  were  stoned,  some  of  its  saints 
were  crucified,  and  some  of  its  heroes  were  put  to  death. 

Change  appeared  to  have  laid  its  polluting  hands  upon  every- 
thing that  should  have  been  held  sacred  and  inviolable.  Men  who 
had  never  been  Democrats  aspired  to  gushing  and  garrulous 
supremacy  in  the  way  of  organization  Political  tramps — pointiog 
to  a  certain  glib  unction  of  speech  as  prima  facie  evidence  of  their 
right  to  fill  pulpits  and  pose  as  meek  and  lowly  preachers  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ — got  thick  among  the  chinaware  and  the  crockery- 
ware  of  the  Democracy,  and  did  more  devilment  in  one  year  than  so 
many  bulls  of  Bashan  could  have  done  in  ten.  Emotional  women 
— sometimes -unfrocked  and  always  unsexed — got  among  the  one 
suspendered,  and  so  ogled  and  ogled  andso  manipulated  and  manip- 
ulated them,  that  in  three  days  they  brought  each  to  the  verge 
of  insanity,  so  making  him  scowl  at  his  wife,  his  companion  for 
forty  years,  the  blameless  mother  of  six  grown  up  children,  with  a 
hideous  expression  of  carving-knives  and  strychnine.  Laws,  that 
the  people  had  been  living  under  peacefully  and  prosperously  for 
forty  years,  were  changed  with  the  rapidity  of  the  figures  in  a 
kaleidoscope.  Each  session  of  the  Legislature  exuded  from  its 
lowest  depths,  which  is  demagogy,  cartload  upon  cartload  of  oint- 
ments, unguents  and  healing  things,  so  that  the  plan  of  salvation 
might  be  done  away  with,  and  the  great  marquee  of  the  millennium 
pitched  upon  the  blue  grass  about  the  capitol  buildings.  The  courts 
also  took  a  hand  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest,  and  as  a  result  of 
all  these  came  gloom,  disgust,  sullenness,  an  indifference  almost  sui- 
cidal, an  apathy  which  froze  like  a  Dakotian  blizzard  as  it  fell,  a 
great  pulling  apart  from  a  lack  of  cohesiveness,  a  great  falling  away 
because  of  a  scowling  demoralization  black  as  a  night  with  a  tem- 
pest in  it— and,  finally,  an  almost  overwhelming  defeat  at  the 
polls. 

We  name  no  names  and  we  make  neither  a  crimination  nor  a 
recrimination.  We  have  simply  pointed  out  the  wounds  upon  the 
body  of  the  Democratic  party — yet  all  unhealed  and  bleeding—  and 
cry  aloud  for  that  blessed  balm  we  know  to  be  still  somewhere 
abiding  in  this  our  political  Gilead. 

And  now  what  about  a  remedy  for  it  all— a  remedy  for  organiza- 
tion at  its  ebb,  discipline  shattered,  querulousness  and  fault-finding 
everywhere,  four  congressmen  lost,  a  bare  working  majority  in  the 
Lower  House  of  the  Legislature,  and  some  splendid  Democratic  parties 
torn  from  their  hitherto  steadfast  moorings  and  given  over,  rudder- 
less and  dismasted  to  the  wreckers  and  spoilers  of  the  great  political 
deep? 

A  very  plain  remedy  is  nigh  at  hand — come  back  to  first  prin- 
ciples. The  present  general  assembly  of  Missouri,  Democratic  in 
both  branches,  can  do  this  vitally  necessary  and  inestimable  work. 
Resolutions  are  all  very  well  in  their  way,  but,  like  fine  words,  they 
butter  no  parsnips.  Such  meetings  as  the  one  just  held  in  St.  Louis, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  95 

if  they  do  no  good  can  at  least  do  no  harm.  The  masses,  however, 
want  acts  not  words.  If  the  present  general  assembly  will  show  to 
the  State  that  It  is  a  dignified,  economical,  practical  body,  opposed 
to  every  form  and  feature  of  experiment  in  legislation;  proscriptive 
in  no  single  degree  and  in  no  single  given  direction;  willing  to  live 
and  lat  live;  that  it  means  to  purge  its  lobbies  free  from  the  hateful 
yet  ruinous  presence  of  a  swarm  of  gad-fly  cranks  of  all  sexes, 
nationalities  and  politicalpredilections;  if  it  will  quit  meddling  with 
old  landmarks  and  cease  to  follow  the  teachings  and  advice  ot  those 
who  are  never  happy  unless  they  are  living  in  political  chaos,  and 
never  well-fed,  clothed  or  housed  unless  there  is  political  dynamite 
and  upheaval  on  every  hand — if,  in  short,  it  will  teach  by  example 
that  the  Democratic  party  of  Missouri  is  what  it  once  was — the  pro- 
tector of  the  poor  man,  the  friend  of  the  laboring  man,  a  foe  to 
proscription  in  all  its  Protean  shapes,  a  zealous  guard  over  the  peo- 
ple's money,  free  from  all  manner  of  envies,  jealousies  and  spites,  a 
true  lover  of  the  Constitution,  a  stalwart  champion  of  home  rule  and 
States' rights,  despising  buncombe,  and  setting  its  face  as  a  flint 
against  every  quack  doctor  of  a  demagogue  peddling  all  sorts  of  vile 
legislative  nostrums  and  specifics,  the  Democracy  will  rally  to  it  en 
masse,  reform  its  ranks,  and  go  forward  into  the  next  fight  with  all 
of  its  old-time  resolution  and  audacity.  But  there  must  be  no  back- 
ing and  filling.  The  hour  has  struck  when  a  new  day  is  to  be  ushered 
in  of  either  men  or  mice. 

M.  TAINE  ON  NAPOLEON. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  17. 1887.] 

M.  Taine,  having  in  his  own  estimation,  pilloried  Victor  Hugo, 
for  all  the  future,  has  been  writing  a  series  of  articles  on  the  life 
and  character  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

M.  Taine  is  a  French  literary  charlatan,  who  carries  the  commune 
into  literature  and  strives  to  pull  down  as  many  great  names  as  pos- 
sible, the  better  to  propitiate  the  red  Republicans  of  the  faubourgs. 
It  is  not  the  first  time  in  history  that  a  rat  has  been  known  to  attack 
an  elephant — not  the  first  time  in  history  that  little  six-by-nine  luci- 
fers  have  risen  in  revolt  against  the  living  God  and  been  kicked  into 
perdition  for  their  audacity. 

Indeed,  among  a  certain  class  of  authors  the  writing  of  sacrileg- 
ious things  is  looked  upon  as  the  frank  license  of  superior  skill,  and 
the  formulating  of  blasphemous  speeches  the  strongest  sort  of  evi- 
dence that  behind  the  sacrilege  and  behind  the  blasphemy  there  is  a 
genius  that  might  illuminateand  entrance  theworld. 

To  this  class  belongs  Henri  Taiue.  It  is  positively  painful  to 
see  him  drag  his  crooked  and  crippled  limbs  up  to  the  assault  upon 
the  mighty  Corsican.  Why  so  feeble  an  assailant  should  choose  for 
his  pattering  and  inconsequential  blowsso  huge  a  colossus  is  only  to 
be  accounted  for  upon  the  supposition  that  notoriety,  even  though 
it  be  of  the  infamous  sort,  is  better  than  no  notoriety  at  all.  Pos- 
sessed perfectly  of  this  spirit  was  Eratostratus,  the  Ephesian,  who 
burnt  the  famous  temple  of  Diana,  and  Randolph,  who  pulled  the 
nose  of  Andrew  Jackson. 

Red  republicanism  never  had  a  master  in  Europe  until  Napoleon 
came.  He  organized  it,  drilled  it,  armed  it,  equipped  it,  and  then 
served  it  out  as  food  for  gunpowder.  Jacobin  bones  were  left  on 
every  battle-field  from  Moscow  to  Waterloo.  He  found  the  crown  of 
Louis  XVI.  rolling  in  a  gutter  of  blood,  and  he  picked  it  up,  cleaned 


96  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

it,  and  put  it  upon  his  head.  To  keep  it  there  he  had  to  make  war. 
All  the  kings  in  Europe  coalesced  to  kill  him,  and  to  save  his  own 
life  he  became  a  king  himself.  That  necessitated  army  after  army, 
and  who  so  well  qualified  to  fight  as  those  old  Septembrizers, 
those  old  Dantuniau  butchers  of  the  Abbaye,  those  old  cut-throats 
of  the  Cordelier  club  who  apostrophized  the  guillotine  as  a  beauti- 
ful woman,  and  wrote  sonnets  to  its  knife  as  to  a  coquettish  maiden. 

Napoleon  knew  the  who  e  savage  lot  better  than  any  other  man 
in  all  France,  and  he  managed,  first  and  last,  to  get  the  great  bulk 
of  them  killed.  Their  lineal  descendants  to  day  are  such  rabid 
Republicans  as  Taine,  Madame  De  llemusat,  Jung,  and  a  whole  host 
of  other  third-rate  scrioblers,  who  imagine  that  they  can  put  out  the 
light  of  the  sun  by  lighting  two-penny  tallow  candles. 

And  how  do  they  seek  to  blacken  the  fame  of  the  great  Napo- 
leon? How  does  this  despoiler  of  the  dead,  Taine,  seek  to  do  it? 
By  adverse  criticisms  of  his  genius  as  a  soldier?  No.  By  logical 
discussions  of  his  capacity  as  a  commander-in-chief?  No.  By 
showing  wherein  he  failed  as  a  ruler,  a  lawgiver,  an  emperor,  the 
conqueror  of  Europe?  No.  By  comparing  him  unfavorably  to 
Ca3sar,  Hannibal,  Marl  borough,  Frederick  the  Great?  No,  but  by 
dwelling  upon  the  venial  sins  and  shortcomings  of  his  personal  char- 
acter. He  delights  to  tell  how  Napoleon  gave  way  at  times  to  par- 
oxysms of  ungovernable  temper.  How  he  swore  at  his  secretaries, 
pinched  the  ears  of  his  aids  de  camp,  roared  out  at  Josephine,  abused 
his  marshals,  broke  furniture,  threw  his  clothes  in  the  fire,  insulted 
ambassadors,  kept  five  or  six  mistresses,  would  not  brook  contra- 
diction, did  not  know  what  patience  was,  cared  nothing  for  music, 
could  not  spell,  did  not  know  French,  never  read  a  book,  abomin- 
ated plays,  persecuted  Madame  De  Stael,  put  on  theatrical  airs,  was 
the  terror  of  courtiers,  and  the  overbearing  despot  whom  all  about 
him  feared. 

And  is  this  not  a  wonderful  way  to  sum  up  the  life  and  char- 
acter of  Napoleon  Bonaparte?  To  gossip  about  him  in  the  style  of 
an  old  woman;  to  tell  of  the  little  faults  and  foibles  of  poor  human 
nature;  to  become  his  valet  in  order  to  see  him  at  his  toilet,  in  his 
bath,  when  he  is  relaxed,  when  he  has  nothing  else  to  do  except 
to  make  himself  disagreeable;  to  leave  out  the  Italian  campaign, 
the  Austrian  campaign,  the  Prussian  campaign;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  Alps — where  the  eagles  of  the  mouutaics  and  tbe  eagh  s  of  the 
standards  touched  wing  and  wing  and  soared  together;  nothing  of 
Montenotte;  of  Lodi,  of  Arcola,  of  Marengo,  of  Austerlitz, 
Wagram  and  Jena,  of  Eylan,  Friedland  and  Borodino;  nothing 
of  the  raft  upon  the  Niemen,  the  peace  of  Tilsit,  and  three 
monarchs  at  his  feet  pleading  for  the  bare  right  to  reign.  And  yet 
M.  Taine  calls  ail  this  interminable  stuff  of  his  about  Bonaparte's 
boots,  temper,  toilettes,  idiosyncracies  of  various  kinds,  and  what 
not,  an  accurate  and  critical  summing  up  of  the  life  and  character 
of  the  greatest  soldier,  the  greatest  lawgiver,  the  greatest  adminis- 
trator and  the  greatest  ruler  in  all  ways  to  make  a  nation  powerful 
that  the  world  ever  produced 

The  desire  of  the  red  Republicans  to  bring  imperialism  into 
disrepute  may  be  all  very  legitimate  and  desirable,  but  why  send  a 
rat  to  attack  an  elephant?  Were  there  not  others  of  the  earth  alto- 
gether earthly  to  be  carped  at  and  picked  to  pieces?  It  takes  a  god 
to  destroy  a  demi-sfod.  No  pigmy  of  a  man,  much  less  such  a  man  as 
Henri  Taine,  chained  Prometheus  to  the  rock  and  summoned  the 
vultures  from  the  sky  to  prey  upon  his  vitals.  For  work  like  that 
the  forger  of  the  thunderbolts  had  to  apply  his  hands.  The  garru- 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  97 

lous  Frenchman  has  simply  lighted  his  two-penny  candles  in  front  of 
that  tomb  under  the  dome  of  The  Invalides,  and  proposes  to  put  out 
the  sun  of  Austerlitz. 

THE  STATUE  TO  CALHOUN. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  27, 1887.] 

South  Carolina  did  well  yesterday  when  she  unveiled  the  statue 
which  had  been  erected  to  the  memory  of  her  foremost  citizen,  John 
C.  Calhoun.  That  he  was  the  strongest  man  the  South  ever  pro- 
duced in  many  intellectual  ways,  no  Northern  man  doubts;  that  he 
was  the  strongest  man  the  nation  ever  produced  in  many  intellectual 
ways,  the  North  will  never  admit.  As  parlies  exist  at  present;  as 
long  as  sectional  lines  remain  as  rigidly  drawn  as  they  are  to-day; 
while  the  memories  and  the  events  of  the  Civil  War  still  go  to  make 
up  the  standard  whereby  public  men  are  tried,  analyzed,  and  given 
a  place  in  contemporaneous  history,  Calhoun,  colossus  though  he 
was,  can  never  leave  his  mighty  impress  upon  much  beyond  the  con- 
fines of  his  own  immediate  section.  The  day  will  come,  however, 
when  Tie  will  be  dealt  with  as  an  American  in  the  broadest  and  fullest 
acceptation  of  the  term.  Not  as  a  South  Carolinian  alone,  not  as  a 
Southern  man  alone,  not  solely  as  a  States'  rights  man,  but  as  a  citizen 
of  the  entire  republic,  born  to  its  institutions,  the  eloquent  advocate 
of  its  safest  policies,  the  fearless  exponent  of  its  best  thoughts,  the 
most  inspired  expounder  of  its  wise  institutions,  and  the  most 
prophetic  statesman  a  nation  ever  had  to  warn  it  of  its  perils,  and 
point  out  to  it  the  dangers  that  might  be  averted  if  it  were  true  to 
its  own  interests  and  to  the  civilization  which  called  it  into  being. 

The  orator  of  the  occasion  was  well  chosen.  The  Hon.  L.  Q. 
C.  Lamar,  both  by  education  and  sympathetic  political  training, 
was  thoroughly  equipped  for  the  work  he  was  expected  to  accom- 
plish. Without  feeling  it  or  knowing  it,  perhaps,  the  great  South 
Carolinian  had  been  his  model  in  more  ways  than  one1.  It  was  in 
these  qualities  alone,  more  than  in  any  other,  the  orator  says,  was  to 
be  found  thecauseof  his  unparalleled  hold  upon  the  love,  reverence 
antitrust  of  his  people.  "His/'  hesays,  "was  the  greatness  of  a  soul, 
which,  fired  with  a  love  of  virtue,  consecrated  itself  to  truth  and 
duty,  and  with  unfaltering  confidence  in  God,  was  ever  ready  to 
be  immolated  in  the  cause  of  right  and  country." 

In  an  article  of  this  sort,  or  even  in  an  article  of  any  kind  in 
this  day  and  generation,  it  would  be  time  thrown  away  and  effort 
wasted  to  attempt  a  criticism  upon  the  intellectual  side  of  Calhoun's 
character.  As  well  discuss  light,  or  heat,  or  germination,  or  the 
sun's  rays,  or  the  ebb  and  the  flow  of  the  ocean.  As  the  advocate 
and  the  champion  of  States'  rights,  both  in  their  essence  and  their 
purity,  he  never  had  an  equal.  None  whoever  lived  in  this  country 
approximated  him  in  luminous  power  and  unanswerable  logic.  He 
was  never  ornate.  He  stood  in  speaking  as  some  vitalized  figure 
carved  from  marble.  'The  stream  of  his  discourse  flowed  from  him 
as  some  calm,  clear,  yet  resistless  river.  Many  replies  were  made 
to  his  arguments  in  favor  of  this  States'  rights  interpretation  of  the 
Constitution,  but  answers  never.  On  one  memorable  occasion  Mr. 
Webster  is  reported  as  saying,  in  connection  with  a  speech  Calhoun 
had  just  made  in  defense  of  State  sovereignty:  "  It  may  be  replied 
to,  but  it  can  never  be  answered.  Sir,  it  is  unanswerable." 

Secretary  Lamar's  address  is  quite  full  and  satisfactory.  He 
does  not  present  Calhoun  in  any  new  light,  but  it  brings  him  out 


98  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

again  into  the  full  view  of  the  public.  His  is  a  character  to  be  studied 
from  every  standpoint,  especially  from  every  public  and  political 
standpoint.  The  present  generation  do  not  inform  themselves  as 
thoroughly  as  they  should  of  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  great  ones 
gone,  more  particularly  the  great  ones  who  founded  the  republic. 
They  know  Clay,  Calhoun  and  Webster  more  by  the  constant  repe- 
titi  >n  of  their  names  than  by  any  careful  examination  or  summing 
up  of  the  life  or  works  of  either.  We  do  not  say  that  the  American  in- 
tellect has  deteriorated  since  the  men  of  the  Revolution  lived  or  their 
immediate  descendants,  but  we  do  say  that  the  age  of  statesmen 
appears  to  have  passed.  The  men  charged  now  to  conduct  public 
affairs  are  generally  weak,  very  much  swa}red  by  personal  likes  and 
dislikes  and  full  of  deceit,  subterfuge  and  trickery.  The  great 
need  to-day  in  the  councils  of  the  country  is  an  unselfish  courage. 
Patriotism  without  courage  is  as  mere  sounding  brass  and  tinkling 
cymbal.  Indeed,  patriotism  is  but  another  name  for  the  very  high- 
est sort  of  courage — the  courage  of  conviction,  devotion  and  truth. 
One  thing  more.  Many  believe  that  the  results  of  the  war  put 
to  death  forever  1  he  doctrine  of  States' rights.  There  never  was  a 
greater  mistake  if  liberty  itself  is  to  live  and  the  present  form  of 
government  endure  as  the  Constitution  established  it.  Calhoun's 
spirit  and  teachings  are  yet  to  save  the  nation  from  the  unutterable 
despotism  of  centralization. 

CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  14, 1887.] 

If  it  be  true  that  the  hand  of  death  is  even  now  being  heavily  laid 
upon  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  the  great  Irish  leader,  the  century 
will  not  have  furnished,  when  the  end  is  finally  reached,  a  more  piti- 
ful and  deplorable  giving  up  of  life. 

It  is  the  surroundings  which  will  constitute  the  tragedy.  He  is 
carrying  his  country's  banner.  He  is  just  in  the  prime  of  his  physi- 
cal manhood,  if  that  is  to  be  measured  by  years,  and  just  in  the  per- 
fect possession  of  every  intellectual  faculty.  More  united  than  they 
have  ever  been,  even  under  O'Connell,  the  Irish  people  are  at  his 
back.  He  has  already  put  forth  so  many  admirable  qualities  of 
leadership.  He  has  been  so  patient  in  adversity,  so  calm  in  defeat, 
so  wise  in  counsel,  so  brave  in  actual  combat  that  to  lose  him  now 
would  be  for  Ireland,  in  this  mighty  duel  to  the  death  for  liberty, 
like  losing  her  sword  arm  at  the  shoulder. 

A  volume  might  be  written  upon  the  part  that  sudden  or  inop- 
portune death  has  played  in  the  history  of  nations.  When  at  Lussac 
bridge  the  lance  head  of  a  Breton  squire  sped  truer  to  the  heart  of 
John  Chandos  than  all  the  steel  of  the  chivalry  of  France  had  done 
on  the  fifty  f  oughten  fields,  was  it  any  wonder  that  the  Black  Prince, 
worn  by  disease  and  bent  under  his  harness,  exclaimed  wearily  when 
the  news  was  brought  to  him,  "God  help  us  then!  We  have  lost 
everything  on  the  thither  side  of  the  seas  "  Or  if  Montcalm  had 
lived,  what  might  fin  ally  have  been  the  fate  of  Canada?  If  Caesar 
had  been  spared,  while  he  might  not  have  cared  to  save  the  repub- 
lic, would  he  not  have  made  Nero  and  Caligula  impossible?  What 
might  not  have  happened  also  to  Catholic  Europe  if  that  old  war 
wolf  from  the  north,  Gustavus  Adolphus.  had  not  fallen  at  Lutzen, 
ankle-deep  in  blood,  five  balls  in  his  body  and  a  saber  stroke  which 
crushed  his  skull?  Who  can  doubt  for  a  moment  that  all  the  misery, 
pillage  and  degradation  which  the  South  endured  through  eight 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  99 

years  of  Grantism  and  reconstruction  would  not  have  been  saved  her 
if  the  miserable  assassin  had  stayed  his  hand  and  permitted  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  to  live  and  carry  out  his  policy? 

We  do  not  say  that  the  Irish  struggle  would  not  go  on  even 
though  Parnell  should  die  suddenly  from  the  grievous  sickness 
which  is  now  said  to  have  fallen  upon  him  ;  but  we  do  say  that  his 
loss  at  such  a  time  would  be  almost  irreparable. 

He  knows  his  people,  and  he  knows  them  at  that  better  by  all 
odds  than  any  among  his  following.  In  his  hands  he  holds  the 
threads  of  every  combination.  A  large  proportion  of  the  machinery 
of  campaigning,  both  offensive  and  defensive,  is  the  result  of  his 
own  individual  and  [indomitable  work.  Gladstone  leans  upon  him 
in  perfect  confidence  and  trusts  him  implicitly.  His  influence  over 
his  co-workers  and  associates  is  remarkable  in  a  cause  that  has  so 
few  of  the  elements  of  physical  success  as  compared  with  its  adver- 
saries. At  a  word  he  could  make  war  or  peace,  bring  about  an 
uprising  or  precipitate  a  revolution.  Nor  can  too  much  stress  be 
laid  upon  this  powerful  gift  or  factorship  in  his  character  as  a 
leader.  The  hour  may  come  when  it  will  be  folly  any  longer  to 
either  speak,  plead,  or  negotiate.  The  hand  that  sometimes  refuses 
the  sword  must  forever  renounce  the  scepter.  There  are  also  times 
when  a  great  cause,  no  matter  how  holy  or  just,  must  either  fight  or 
abdicate.  Then  we  firmly  believe  Parnell  will  fight. 

THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  FLAGS. 

[Kansas  City,  Times  July  3, 1887.] 

General  Sheridan  from  one  standpoint  and  ex-President  Jeffer. 
son  Davis  from  another,  have  just  written  each  a  practical  and 
sensible  communication  on  the  subject  of  the  Confederate  flags 
captured  in  battle,  or  supposed  to  have  been  so  captured.  Sheridan 
writes  as  a  soldier;  Davis  as  a  statesman,  with  some'  of  the  touches 
of  the  amazing  grace  of  politics  thrown  in.  Each  represents  the 
extreme  of  two  civilizations,  but  the  place  of  their  meeting  is  the 
common  ground  of  common  sense  and  practical  humanity. 

It  is  well  for  these  distinguished  gentlemen  to  have  their  say, 
the  first  with  a  sort  of  f  e-f  o-f  um  of  the  ride  to  Winchester,  and  the 
second  with  a  sort  of  funereal  sighing  for  a 

"  Touch  of  the  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still;" 

but  the  fighting  men  of  the  line,  whom  history  never  mentions  and 
never  thinks  of,  have  their  own  ideas  and  opinions  also  as  to  this 
entire  flag  humbuggery,  no  matter  where  the  flags  now  are  or  when 
and  where  they  were  first  captured.  As  far  as  the  great  mass  of 
the  Confederate  private  soldiers  are  concerned  they  do  not  care 
two  straws  whether  these  so-called  captured  flags  are  to  day  in 
some  spread-eagle  Federal  museum  in  Washington  City,  in  Nova 
Scotia,  in  Booroo-Booroo  Gha  or  in  Afghanistan.  The  cause  for 
which  they  once  floated  in  the  hot,  lit  foreground  of  many  a  terrible 
and  pitiless  battle,  after  having  appealed  to  the  sword  perished  by 
the  sword.  That  was  the  end.  The  last  lion  of  the  Confederacy, 
borne  backward  in  his  leap  at  Gettysburg,  died  at  Appomattox 
Court  House.  That  again,  we  say,  was  the  end.  There  was  no 
more  cause.  No  more  struggle,  no  more  government,  no  more 
armed  resistance — no  more  anything  for  the  South  except  misery, 


100  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

poverty,  graveyards  everywhere,  crepe  everywhere,  mourning 
everywhere,  and  finally  the  beak  of  the  reconstruction  vulture  where 
once  had  been  the  musket  of  the  brave  invader. 

Besides,  there  is  a  wonderful  amount  of  gush  and  tomfoolery 
about  this  flag  business  for  other  causes  and  reasons.  Take  the  whole 
mass  and  mess  and  muck  of  them — beginning  at  the  palmetto  flag 
of  South  Carolina,  with  a  coiled  rattlesnake  at  the  root  of  the  tree, 
and  leading  on  up  through  device  after  device  and  experiment  after 
experiment,  until  the  regulation  stars  and  bars  were  reached — and 
what  is  left  at  last  but  something  that  can  be  found  on  every  field 
where  one  of  those  parti-colored  and  variegated  banners  was 
unfurled — the  deathless  valor  of  the  Confederate  soldier.  That  is  all 
that  the  survivors  care  anything  about.  Many  a  time  they  fought 
splendidly  without  any  flag  at  all.  It  was  the  cause  they  wereafter. 
Their  uniform  was  supposed  to  be  gray  in  color,  but  who  can  erect 
a  standard  whereby  rags  and  tatters  shall  be  contrasted.  Who  shall 
prescribe  the  hue  of  seams  and  darns  and  patches  ? 

Another  thing:  How  many  of  these  so  called  captured  flags 
were  ever  really  captured  in  actual  battle?  Some,  we  know,  fell 
into  Federal  hands  through  capitulation.  Somecametothem  through 
the  pre-emption  of  discovery.  Hidden  away  securely,  as  was  sup- 
posed, by  detachments  on  a  raid  or  outlying  scouting  parties,  they 
were  either  given  up  by  faithless  guardians  or  unearthed  by  the 
enemy  himself.  Some  were  mere  buckram  flags,  parodies  upon  the 
originals,  pieced  together  by  frolicsome  school  girls  and  stuck  up  on 
poles  by  the  roadside  in  sheer  womanly  bravado.  Some  were  furi- 
ously and  gloriously  taken  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet;  but,  how- 
ever, any  or  all  of  them  were  taken,  the  fact  is  eternal  that  those 
who  now  have  them  are  welcome  to  them  forever  and  ever. 

Neither  do  the  surviving  Confederate  soldiers  care  two  straws 
for  the  political  aspect  of  the  flag  question.  The  American  people 
make  up  a  composite  race — one  part  being  demagogues  and  the 
other  part  toadies,  the  demagogues,  however,  standing  vastly  in  the 
ascendency.  The  Republican  demagogues  have  been  and  are  yet 
making  much  of  an  uproar  over  President  Cleveland'sfirst  action  in 
the  matter  of  the  captured  flags.  They  would  march  en  masse  to 
Washington  to  prevent  their  return.  They  would  rise  en  masse  to 
tear  from  his  office  any  executive  officer  who  would  dare  to  attempt 
such  a  thing.  They  would  do  a  great  many  other  terrible  things, 
among  the  balance  to  re-enact  the  role  of  the  ass  under  the  lion's 
skin;  "but  high  above  all  this  rant,  and  roar,  and  fustian,  there  can 
simply  be  seen  another  edition  of  the  bloody  shirt.  True,  this  loyal 
old  bugaboo  is  a  little  bit  different  in  its  cut,  and  a  little  bit  shrimper 
in  its  gather  and  pucker,  but  how  Sherman's  grand  old  gal,  Eliza 
Pinkston,  would  delight  to  see  it  wave  as  of  old,  and  how  John 
Sherman  himself  will  wave  it  for  her  delectation  in  the  spirit  land, 
and  for  his  own  advancement  in  the  land  of  the  demagogues  and  the 
toadies.  One  thing  as  well  as  another  serves  for  a  bloody  shirt,  and 
why  not  the  return  of  the  flags  captured  or  supposed  to  be  captured 
from  the  Confederate  forces? 


GENERAL    GORDON. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  17,  1887.] 

General  Gordon  has  been  found  again  in  Equatorial  Africa,  this 
time  far  up  in  the  Gondokoro  country  and  the  big  lakes. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  101 

What  is  he  doing  there?  What  has  he  been  doing  since  hi3 
miraculous  escape  from  Khartoum? 

Nothing.  He  never  escaped.  He  has  never  been  seen  after  the 
gates  of  his  defenses  were  sold  by  the  miserable  Egyptians  to  the 
Arab  followers  of  the  still  more  miserable  Mahdi. 

Most  probably  he  died  under  a  hundred  spear  thrusts.  It  is  gen- 
erally understood  that  his  head  was  cut  off.  He  may  also  have  been 
flayed.  This  sort  of  mutilation  is  very  common  in  the  East,  and  Gor- 
don was  superstitiously  regarded  as  some  monster  of  a  different  race, 
who  would  arise  again  if  he  were  not  dismembered. 

The  Gondokoro  story  is  an  old  one.  There  never  was  a  day 
during  the  siege  when  Gordon  could  not  have  escaped  from  his  envi- 
ronments at  Khartoum.  The  soldiers  could  have  gone  with  ease — 
the  citizens  would  have  been  sacrificed.  He  preferred  that  they 
should  all  die  together.  If  ever  there  was  a  Christian  soldier  in  the 
fullest  and  freest  acceptation  of  the  term,  Gordon  was  one. 

The  average  Christian  soldier,  however,  was  most  generally  a 
sneak.  Behind  the  mask  of  meekness  and  lowliness  he  had  the 
ambition  of  a  king  eagle.  Look  at  Cromwell.  He  used  to  pray  as 
many  as  eleven  times  a  day.  In  battle  he  was  known  to  dismount 
his  own  cavalry  regiment — the  Ironsides — and  put  up  a  fervent 
appeal  for  victory,  all  of  which  did  not  prevent  him  from  cutting 
off  the  head  of  one  king,  and  becoming  one  of  the  sternests  despots 
of  Europe.  Then  there  was  old  Monk,  who  came  alor;g  behind 
Cromwell.  He  piddled  and  prayed  all  the  way  up  to  London, 
playing  fast-and-loose  with  Parliament,  higgling  with  the  Presby- 
terians, hot  and  cold  by  turns  to  the  Episcopalians,  and  finally 
went  over  to  Charles  II.  for  so  much  cash  in  hand  and  an  earldom. 

But  Gordon  was  a  Christian  general  in  this,  that  he  frankly 
declared  what  he  believed,  what  his  convictions  were,  what  motives 
controlled  him,  and  for  all  of  these  he  fought,  prayed,  and  died.  Of 
all  other  English  generals,  we  recall  only  the  name  of  Havelock. 

Gordon  was  sent  especially  to  bring  out  of  the  Soudan  the 
Egyptian  garrisons.  It  was  as  a  giant  going  into  the  night  to  drag 
forth  its  specters.  It  was  literally  the  unknown  he  was  about  to 
ride  into,  and  he  had  for  arms  only  a  small  walking  cane  and  a  well- 
worn  Bible.  Poor  missionary  !  so  trustful  and  yet  so  doomed. 

His  government  abandoned  him  early.  Red  tape  tied  him 
tighter  than  the  bonds  of  Paul  at  the  first  onset.  Not  a  single  sol- 
dier was  ever  given  him.  He  asked  for  bare  two  hundred  British 
at  Wady-Halfy.  Refused.  For  bare  5,000  Turks  for  tne  whole 
territory.  Refused.  For  Nubar  Pasha  as  assistant.  Refused.  For 
a  garrison  at  Berber.  Refused.  For  money  to  organize  the  natives. 
Refused.  Sir  Evelyn  Baring,  a  water  gruel  diplomat  sent  out  to 
Cairo  to  see  what  was  needed,  never  saw  Egypt  in  his  life  before, 
and  only  then  from  within  sight  of  the  Red  Sea  and  the  Mediterra- 
nean, dealt  with  this  Samson  as  with  a  baby.  He  set  him  upon  a 
high  chair,  tucked  a  napkin  under  his  chin,  and  bade  him  live  on 
Nile  water. 

Poor  soul!  He  still  watched  on,  hoped  on,  prayed  on,  starved 
on,  fought  on.  He  saw  garrison  after  garrison  surrender,  and  chief 
after  chief  fall  away  from  him.  None  of  his  race  were  by  him  or 
about  him.  His  army  was  made  up  of  everything  which  would  run, 
sell,  desert,  betray,  steal,  rob — do  every  detestable  deed  known  to 
man — but  it  would  never  fight.  No  wonder  this  last  despairing  cry 
came  from  him  in  his  pitiful  helplessness — "O!  for  but  one  more 
touch  of  elbows  with  the  men  who  stood  with  me  in  the  Crimea." 
He  was  thinking  then  of  the  old  Black  Watch,  the  famous  92d  High- 


102  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

landers — his  regiment — and  he  was  hearing  again  the  pealing  of  the 
slogan,  and  the  bagpipes  playing  as  of  old,  and  loud,  and  shrill,  and 
high- 
All  the  Blue  Bonnets  are  over  the  border. 

Surely,  surely,  then,  his  youth  must  all  have  come  back  to  him. 
And  all  his  childhood  found  him  on  the  hills. 

There  came  a  day,  however,  when  he  was  not  to  see  the  sun  set 
any  more.  First,  the  flour  gave  out,  then  the  meal.  There 
were  no  medicines.  There  never  had  been  any  since  Hicks  Pasha 
went  out  on  his  last  march  to  deification  or  death,  and  found  a 
butchery  There  had  been,  no  meat  for  month's.  Cats  and  dogs 
and  whatever  else  crept  or  crawled  had  long  ago  been  devoured. 
Grass  was  gnawed  on  the  streets  as  the  wild  King  Nebuchadnezzar 
gnawed  it  while  God's  curse  of  madness  abode  upon  his  head. 

Finally,  Sir  Evelyn  Baring's  bill-of-fare  had  become  alone 
possible:  Eat  Nile  water.  All  day  one  day  they  ate  it,  and  that 
night  six  of  Gordon's  pashas  opened  six  gates  to  the  enemy.  The 
Nile  water  was  evidently  a  ration  not  fit  for  a  soldier.  There  is  not 
much  more  to  say,  only  when  any  liar  puts  in  motion  a  report  that 
Chinese  Gordon  is  hiding  in  the  wilds  of  Equatorial  Africa,  such 
liar  should  be  instantly  destroyed. 

No  more  precious  and  peerless  valor  has  any  man  shown  through 
all  the  ages.  He  went,  beautiful  in  the  warrior  joy  of  free  and 
accepted" death,  and  took  from  fate's  outstretched  hand  the  martyr's 
crown  —  only  such  crown  as  is  fit  for  heroes.  He  made  no  moan. 
A  simple,  faithful,  stainless  knight,  death  smote  him  in  the  harness 
and  he  died  by  the  standard. 

VICTOR  HUGO. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  21, 1887.] 

In  various  ways,  and  by  many  tangled  and  broken  lanes  and 
avenues,  efforts  are  being  made  in  France  to  belittle  Victor  Hugo, 
and  raise  up  over  against  him  the  younger  Dumas,  Octave  Feuillet, 
Emile  Zola,  and  a  dozen  or  so  other  young  gentlemen  of  the  pen, 
sown  to  be  a  field  of  wheat,  but  sprouted  as  rye,  grew  as  rye,  and 
continued  to  be  rye  until  the  hogs  were  turned  in  upon  it,  showing 
by  their  greediness  that  it  was  not  alone  rye,  but  a  very  fine  quality 
of  rye  at  that. 

We  will  admit  that  these  gentlemen  may  have  been  sown  as 
wheat — sound,  prolific,  unmistakable  wheat — but  the  wheat  was 
bogus,  and  the  outgrowth  something  else  except  the  original  seed. 

We  think  that  we  can  understand  the  present  attitude  of  most 
of  the  French  writers  of  Paris  toward  Victor  Hugo.  He  soared  too 
high  when  he  soared,  and  when  he  alighted  it  was  upon  a  crag 
inaccessible.  Mediocrity  loves  company.  Birds  that  twitter,  and 
sing,  and  peck  here  and  there  about  the  eaves  and  gables  of  houses, 
have  no  use  for  eyries.  The  sun  blears  their  eye-sight.  Collapsed 
pinions  are  so  many  barometers  of  altitude.  Their  lungs  give  away 
above  a  tree-top.  If  their  precious  little  bills  are  not  eternally  stuffed 
with  bon-bons  and  sugar  plums,  they  become  inarticulate.  Every 
throat  is  dumb  until  it  has  been  food-expanded. 

Another  thing:  These  so-called  rivals  of  Hugo  were  manufac- 
turers; Hugo  was  creator  By  manufacturers  we  mean  in  literature 
the  faculty  to  saw,  plane,  smooth,  adjust,  emasculate,  make  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  103 

proprieties  trim,  dove-tail,  glue  together,  make  pagodas,  have  arti- 
ficial  lakes,  get  big  gold  fish,  some  water  lilies,  a  water  dragon  or 
two,  and  an  ape.  By  creators  we  mean  a  stroke  of  the  pen  and  a 
passion.  Another  stroke,  and  humanity  down  in  the  lists  like  a 
giant  struggling  to  do  some  good.  Another  stroke,  and  a  star  in  the 
east,  and  the  camel  drivers  down  on  their  knees,  terrified  but  not 
knowing  that  a  Christ  has  been  born.  Another  stroke,  and  lo! 
Jean  Valjean!  Another  stroke,  and  lo!  Napolean  Bonaparte.  This 
is  what  it  means  to  be  a  creator. 

Take  the  younger  Dumas  as  an  example.  It  is  true  that  he 
labors  under  the  immense  disadvantage  of  being  the  son  of  his  father, 
who  was  a  splendid  giant,  and  who  peopled  the  heavens  with  con- 
stellations like  Athos  and  Aramis  and  Porthos  and  D'Artagnan — 
but  take  him  as  the  rival  of  Hugo,  self-appointed  and,  perhaps,  self- 
exalted.  If  iu  literature  you  gave  him  a  sobriquet,  it  would  be  the 
"Anatomist."  He  analyzes  a  cough,  but  he  evokes  no  idea  of  con- 
sumption. He  dissects  a  suicide,  but  he  leaves  behind  the  philosoph- 
ical belief  that  some  sort  of  expiation  was  needed  for  a  life  already 
too  much  advanced.  He  deals  with  love,  and  it  is  pull  Dick,  pull 
Devil,  as  to  which  of  the  lovers  care  the  least  for  each  other.  He 
stands  by  the  deathbed,  and  he  scoffs  at  the  priests.  He  arms  him- 
self for  war,  and;  he  jeers  at  the  young  conscript  who  cries  because 
he  has  just  left  his  sweetheart  or  his  mother.  He  makes  a  patriotic 
address,  and  he  brings  in  atheism.  He  makes  an  address  upon  lit- 
erature, and  between  two  weak  and  hesitating  fingers  he  snuffs  out 
the  candle  called  Victor  Hugo. 

Snuffs  it  out!  Hold  on  a  little  bit.  That  can't  be  done.  Men 
afloat — that  is  to  say,  rushing  from  pillar  to  post,  here  to-day  and 
gone  to-morrow,  living  by  travel,  and  a  great  deal  of  it — like  light 
things.  A  straw  pile,  only  so  it  is  afire,  breaks  the  monotony  of  a 
day's  ride.  A  blockade  of  any  sort  is  a  benediction,  because  a 
blockade  signifies  force,  power,  obstruction,  something  that  must  be 
inquired  into,  something  that  can  be  inquired  about.  But  when 
anchored  men  say,  Who  is  this  young  Alexander  Dumas?  I  have 
read  him  some,  but  he  don't  touch  me,  somehow.  He  discourses 
much.  He  appears  to  be  particularly  sententious  in  some  places, 
and  particularly  prolix  in  others,  but  in  putting  every  thing  together, 
I  find  that  if  you  take  away  the  chaff  you  break  up  the  harvest. 

Break  up  the  harvest!  Lord  bless  you,  there  was  never  any- 
thing planted  to  make  a  harvest.  Dumas  fils  was  and  is  a  manufact- 
urer. Hugo  was  the  creator.  Dumas  was  satisfied  with  giving  to 
his  finest  character  a  cough — not  necessarily  fatal,  but  rather  weak, 
suffocating  and  appealing.  He  was  further  satisfied  with  making 
his  poor  victim  die  at  the  right  time  for  himself,  at  the  wrong  time 
for  science  and  for  human  sympathy,  ready  with  a  thousand  hands 
to  apply  a  remedy. 

Hugo  comes  upon  the  stage  like  Danton  used  to,  not  knowing 
what  he  wanted  until  he  got  a  smell  of  blood.  You  hoar  him  first 
like  a  bugle,  faint,  not  exactly  timid,  but  far  away^  Nobody  pays 
any  attention.  ''Bug  Jargal"  dies  with  the  publisher.  "Notre 
Dame  "  poises  a  little  bit,  touches  here  and  there,  wavers  to  and  fro, 
perishes  by  the  wayside. 

"LesMiserables!"  Hush!  Did  you  hear  that  trumpet?  The 
nation  took  time  to  listen.  Presently  "it  came  trooping.  All  chords 
were  touched,  all  nerves  responded,  all  devotions  leaped  active  and 
alive,  all  humanity  stirred  in  its  sleep,  all  splendid  manhood  put  its 
hand  upon  its  sword. 

And  the  "Dame  with  Camelias"  of  the  younger  Dumas,  who 


104  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

has  just  delivered  an  address  before  the  French  academy — think  of 
that — who  has  just  delivered  it  against  Victor  Hugo  and  his  writ- 
ings. 

And  now  for  a  si  mile:  They  stood  Enjoras  up  against  a  dead 
wall.  A  dead  wall  in  French  and  Spanish  executions  is  a  wall  too 
high  for  the  most  nervous  con  script  to  fire  over,  or  for  the  most 
hard  shooting  musket  to  penetrate.  They  stood  Enjoras  up  against 
one  in  the  house  where  he  was  captured.  He  had  curly,  auburn 
hair.  The  blood  in  his  cheeks  came  and  went  as  the  web  and  the 
woof  of  the  Lady  of  Shalott.  Perhaps  he  had  not  slept  for  sixty 
hours.  He  had  seen  death  all  day  and  offered  to  shake  hands  with 
him,  but  death  denied  the  contact.  Finally  they  stood  him  up. 
After  it  was  all  over,  and  nothing  was  left  but  the  midnight  and  the 
corpses,  one  old  grenadier  said:  "It  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  shoot- 
ing at  a  flower." 

What  is  the  appearance  the  situation  presents  when  not  grena- 
diers, but  conscripts  and  militia  stand  Victor  Hugo  up  against  a 
dead  wall  and  shoot  at  him  ?  A  flower  ?  Never.  Some  king  eagle 
is  a  good  name,  after  he  has  towered  above  Gillatt,  who  went  down 
to  his  death  and  his  glory  for  a  woman  who  had  rather  tie  a  pinch- 
beck curate's  white  cravat  than  take  the  paladin,  Breton  though  he 
might  have  been,  who  had  just  conquered  the  devil  fish  and  the 
Douvers. 

We  make  mention  of  these  things  solely  to  show  what  a  war  is 
being  waged  upon  Hugo.  It  is  ridiculous,  but  it  is  practical.  Hugo's 
day  is  near  at  hand.  These  other  people  ?  Ah  !  nothing.  They 
have  no  days. 

HENRY  M.  STANLEY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  23, 1887.] 

And  now  the  rumor  comes  that  Henry  M.  Stanley,  the  noted 
African  explorer  is  dead — killed  by  a  native  in  some  sort  of  com- 
bat or  other.  It  may  not  be  true,  and  he  may  still  be  alive;  but 
the  probabilities  are  against  him.  .  He  was  on  the  same  old  mission. 
Out  goes  an  explorer  into  the  unknown.  He  gets  lost,  or  hemmed 
in,  or  captured.  "  The  far  cry  comes  up  from  Macedonia"  for  help. 
A  rescue  is  planned.  Some  other  explorer,  equally  as  devoted, 
starts  to  accomplish  it.  And  a  third  one  to  find  the  second, and  may 
be  a  fourth  one  to  find  the  third,  until — as  was  the  case  with  Dr.  Liv- 
ingstone— as  many  as  seven  rescuing  parties  went  to  hunt  first  and 
last  for  him,  and  would  have  been  hunting  yet  probably  if  Stanley 
himself  had  not  come  upon  him  accidentally.  This  expedition 
Stanley  is  now  on,  if  he  is  living,  is  an  expedition  to  rescue  Emin 
Bey,  one  of  the  last  beleagured  foreign  officers  left  over  from  the 
Soudan  folly.  Of  course  men  can  do  as  they  please. 

Personal  bravery  is  something  that  always  has  been  and  always 
will  be  admired.  Whoever  risks  his  life  for  the  faith  that  is  in  him 
is  a  hero.  It  is  something  after  all  to  see  a  person  in  the  full  pos- 
session of  a  splendid  manhood  take  every  desperate  chance  that 
can  be  encountered  simply  to  solve  the  source  of  a  river.  Espe- 
cially when  that  river,  to  say  nothing  of  its  source,  can  never  be 
anything  else  while  the  world  stands  except  a  breeder  of  fevers  that 
kill  in  an  hour,  the  haunt  of  savage  wild  beasts  and  still  more  sav- 
age natives.  The  weight  of  all  the  testimony  ever  compiled  is  to 
the  effect  that  the  white  man  cannot  live,  work,  and  thrive  in  equa- 
torial Africa.  Stanley  did  better  than  the  great  bulk  of  his  race 
He  tells  us  why :  "In  four  years  in  the  jungles,"  he  says,  "1  did 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  103 

not  drink  altogether  four  teaspopnfuls  of  either  whisky  or  brandy." 
He  studiously  kept  out  of  the  night  air.  He  never  slept  upon  the 
bare  ground.  He  always  ate  sparingly,  and  used  very  little  meat. 
And  even  with  it  all  he  further  says  :  "A  white  man  who  goes  into 
the  far  tropics  without  a  plentiful  supply  of  opium,  quinine,  and 
calomel  had  far  better  go  without  a  compass,  some  good  fire-arms, 
and  plenty  of  gun-powder.  In  the  first  place,  you  would  never  get 
out ;  in  the  last  place,  you  would  have  thirty  chances  ^out  of  one 
hundred." 

Now,  here  is  the  testimony  of  a  man  who  was  not  yet  thirty 
when  he  went  first  to  hunt  for  Livingstone.  Who  was  an  athlete. 
Whose  liver  worked  like  a  piece  of  prize  machinery.  Who  eschewed 
alcohol  in  every  shape.  Whose  head  was  as  clear  as  a  winter's 
night.  Whose  digestion  was  perfect,  and  yet  who  tells  those  who  are 
to  come  after  him  that  if  they  ever  want  to  get  back  they  must  bring 
plenty  of  calomel,  quinine  and  opium.  Can  it  ever  be  forgottenhow 
Dr.  Livingstone,  the  presence  of  death  in  his  very  tent,  groped  about 
on  his  hands  and  knees  till  he  found  his  medicine  chest  and  ate  calo- 
mel by  the  handful? 

And  for  what  is  all  this  done  ?  For  science,  some  say.  For  geog- 
raphy, say  others.  For  adventure,  exploration,  curiosity,  because  it  is 
desirable,  say  others  still.  For  a  little  gold  dust.  Two  or  three  goril- 
las that  never  materialize  and  a  few  hundred  pounds  of  ivory.  Very 
well.  It  is  a  splendid  field  to  roam  about  in,  get  lost  in,  get  the 
jungle  fever  in;  but  one  must  have  things  pretty  well  closed  up 
behind  him  at  home.  When  he  starts  it  will  be  well  for  his  peace  of 
mind  if  he  has  no  further  retrospects.  Stanley  was  a  gallant  and 
daring  American.  What  a  pity  if  he  too,  should  perish  on  the 
threshold. 

DEATH  FROM  STARVATION. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  24, 1837.] 

A  great  discussion  is  now  going  on  between  some  English  and 
French  journals  as  to  how  starvation  kills,  what  are  the  accompany- 
ing symptoms  of  starvation,  and  what  the  appearance  of  the  body 
after  it  has  been  starved  to  death.  The  text  for  said  discussion 
was  the  finding  some  weeks  ago  of  a  castaway  boat  in  the  Indian 
Ocean,  wherein  were  seven  dead  sailors,  said  to  have  all  died  from 
starvation.  The  dead  men  were  Frenchmen. 

The  principal  point  in  dispute  seems  to  be  what  material  changes 
take  place  in  the  reasoning  faculties  of  the  brain.  To  what  extent, 
in  other  words,  is  the  moral  nature  of  man  involved  as  evidenced  by 
many  horrible  acts  of  cannibalism? 

Death  by  starvation  has  been  simply  regarded  as  a  wasting  of 
the  body,  a  horrible  agony,  an  increasing  weakness,  a  lethargic* 
state  of  the  brain,  coma,  stupefaction,  death.  While  all  this  is  going 
on  in  a  physical  sense,  however,  what  about  the  intellectual  faculty 
and  its  power  of  distinguishing  right  from  wrong?  Is  this,  too, 
not  undergoing  the  process  of  wasting  and  death?  Is  this  not,  too, 
losing  complete  control  over  all  those  superb  moral  qualities  which 
make  so  many  Christian  heroes  and  martyrs  in  the  world?  Is  not 
the  residue  simply  what  the  - 

Angels— uprising,  unveiling,  affirm, 
That  the  play  is  the  Tragedy  Man, 
And  its  hero  the  Conqueror  Worm. 

The  most  deep  rooted  and  powerful  feeling  of  human  nature— 


106  JOHN   NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

tbe  love  of  a  mother  for  her  offspring  —  is  perverted  in  cases  of 
btarvation.  During  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  Jos^phus  tells 
us  that  mothers  ate  their  babies  in  great  numbers  and  greedily.  A 
similar  case  is  mentioned  in  Second  Kings,  sixth  chapter  and 
twenty-ninth  verse.  It  occurred  during  the  famine  in  Samaria.  In 
such  cases,  if  the  intellectual  faculty  was  not  entirely  gone  who 
doubts  for  a  moment  that  the  mothers  would  have  perished  with 
their  children? 

No  end  of  books  have  been  written  on  the  subject  of  starva- 
tion, some  taking  one  ground  and  some  another;  some  contending 
that  the  brain  dies  first,  and  some  that  it  is  the  last  to  die.  In  the 
case  of  these  seven  dead  sailors,  although  there  was  much  distor- 
tion on  some  of  the  faces,  no  attempt  had  been  made  at  cannibalism. 
From  this  the  French  medical  journals  argue  that  the  brain  dies 
last,  and  that  the  moral  faculties  are  the  last  to  leave  the  human 
tenement. 

What  are  the  symptoms  of  death  from  want  of  food,  and  how 
long  can  man  subsist  without  solid  or  liquid  nourishment?  Chossat 
the  great  French  pathologist,  says  from  eight  to  eleven  days,  and 
after  forty  per  cent,  of  the  weight  of  the  body  is  consumed.  Now, 
as  this  means  the  waste  of  more  of  certain  tissues  than  others,  it  may 
be  interesting  to  mention  those  that  suffer  most.  The  fat  wastes  93 
per  cent,  of  its  weight;  the  blood,  75;  the  spleen,  71;  the  liver,  52; 
the  heart,  44;  the  bowels,  42,  and  the  muscles,  42.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  following  parts  waste  much  less:  The  bones,  16  per  cent. ; 
the  eyes,  10;  the  skin,  33;  the  lungs,  22,  and  the  nervous  system  only 
2  per  cent. — another  argument  in  favor  of  the  proposition  that  the 
brain  dies  last.  But  the  pointmost  worthy  of  attention  among  these 
figures  is  the  point  that  there  must  be  almost  consumption  of  fat  be- 
fore death  takes  place — in  fact,  death  by  starvation  is  really  death  by 
cold.  As  soon  as  the  fat  of  the  body  goes — and  fat  is  the  principle  that 
keeps  up  heat — death  takes  place.  The  temperature  of  the  body  dim- 
inishes but  little  until  the  fat  is  consumed,  and  then  it  falls  rapidly. 

The  last  symptoms  of  starvation  from  want  of  food  have  been 
given  in  ten  thousand  books,  and  they  are  generally  the  same 
whether  in  the  polar  regions  or  the  tropics.  They  are:  Severe  pain 
at  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  which  is  relieved  on  pressure.  After  a 
day  or  two  this  pain  subsides,  to  be  followed  by  a  feeling  of  weak- 
ness or  sinking  in  the  same  region.  Then  an  insatiable  thirst  super- 
venes, which,  if  water  be  withheld,  thenceforth  becomes  the  most 
distressing  symptom.  The  countenance  becomes  pale  and  cadaver- 
ous. The  eyes  acquire  a  peculiarly  wild  and  glittering  stare.  Then 
a  general  emaciation.  Then  the  body  exhales  a  peculiar  fcetor  and 
the  skin  is  covered  with  a  dirty,  brownish-looking  and  offensive 
secretion.  The  bodily  strength  rapidly  declines,  the  sufferer  totters 
Jin  walking.  His  voice  grows  weak,  and  he  is  incapable  of  the  least 
exertion.  At  last  the  mental  powers  fail.  First  stupidity,  then 
imbecility,  and  at  the  end  a  raving  delirium. 

Chossat,  above  quoted,  sneers  at  tlie  idea  that  intellectual  loss 
must  precede  cannibalism.  He  declares  that  man  is  a  carnivorous 
animal,  and  that  he  approaches  the  hog  nearest  in  all  of  his  instincts 
and  appetites.  Hence,  when  he  gets  desperately  hungry,  he  will 
eat  his  fellows  like  a  sow  will  eat  up  an  entire  litter  of  pigs. 

However,  the  discussion  goes  on,  and  we  are  only  interested  in 
it  to  the  extent  of  finding  out  by  any  research  or  resource  of  science, 
when  the  man  who  feeds  upon  his  fellow  is  a  physical  or  a  moral 
monster,  or  both.  This  is  the  pith  and  point  of  the  present  discus- 
sion. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  107 

IN  A  FOREIGN  LAND. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  August  31, 1887.] 

The  death  of  Mrs.  Hubbard,  the  wife  of  the  Hon.  Richard  H- 
Hubbard,  American  minister  to  Japan,  was  singularly  touching  and 
pitiful.  She  was  sick  a  long  time.  She  saw  the  inexorable  reaper 
afar  off.  As  he  came  nearer  and  nearer  she  dreamed  oftener  and 
of  tener  of  her  home  by  the  setting  sun.  Just  before  she  went  out 
into  the  night  she  weariedly  asked:  "Are  we  not  almost  there  ?" 

Where  ?    At  her  Texas  home  of  course,  for  none  can  know 
except  the  exile  in  person  how  that  name  home  lingers  the  last  upon 
the  lips  just  before  they  become  inarticulate  forever.    Her  loved 
ones  were  behind  her,  sleeping  the  sleep  that  wakes  not  till  the  blow- 
ing of  the  trumpet.    She  might  perhaps  have  been  a  girl  again. 
There  again  she  saw  the  same  low,  large  moon  lifting  a  realm  of 
romance  out  of  the  sea,  and  there  again  she  saw  the  darkness  and 
the  twilight,  as  twin  ghosts,  creeping  in  from  the  outermost  gloam- 
ings and  obscuring  all  the  land  together.     Outside  a  mocking  bird 
was  singing  as  though  its  voice  had  a  soul  and  that  soul  had  already 
caught  a  glimpse  of  heaven.     It  could  not  be  true  that  the  wan, 
wasted  face  was  never  again  to  feel  the  breezes  of  her  own  native 
land,  nor  the  fading  vision  ever  again  to  see  the  green  of  the  prairie 
and  the  blue  of  the  sky  grow  glad  together.    Had  she  not  been  on  a 
long  journey?    Was  she  not  so  tired — so  tired?    Would  she  not 
reat  ?    Had  she  not  wistfully  asked  :     "Are  we  not  almost  there  ?" 
What  voices  she  must  have  heard  before  she  got  to  the  river. 
What  faces  must  have  stood  out  of  the  mists  of  her  younger  days 
and  smiled  upon  her  as  she  set  her  tender  feet  upon  the  ragged  rocks 
of  the  road  which  led  down  to  the  Jordan.    What  shadows  came 
forth  on  either  hand  and  gathered  close  about  her  for  recognition, 
as  some  gay,  or  blooming,  or  happy,  or  blessed,  or  beautiful  thing 
her  girlhood  had  known  and  her  memory  had  treasured,  until  smit- 
ten in  a  foreign  land  she  was  forced  to  go  the  dark  way  all  alone. 

"Are  we  not  almost  there?"  Yes,  entirely  there  now,  but  not 
in  the  home  where  she  had  left  her  idols  and  where,  through  its 
open  windows,  she  could  see  the  monuments  above  her  head.  It  was 
another  home,  one  not  made  with  hands.  Perhaps  it  was  beautiful. 
Perhaps  it  was  satisfying  and  comforting.  Perhaps  the  new  life 
brought  a  new  delight  in  the  smiting  of  the  palms  and  the  playing 
of  the  harp-players;  but  where  was  her  Texas  home,  the  one  she 
longed  to  reach?  Where  the  mocking  bird  in  the  bushes?  Where 
the  lazy  cattle  grazing,  knee  deep  all  day  in  the  sunshine  and  the 
grasses?  Where  the  stile  at  the  gate?  Where  the  familiarity  that, 
even  in  the  blacknessof  darkness,  could  lay  a  hand  on  fifty  familiar 
objects?  Where  the  "  luteunswept  and^the  pieces  of  rings?"  Where 
"  the  fragments  of  songs  that  nobody  sings?" 

One  knows  nothing  whatever  about  all  these  things.  It  is  not 
given  to  finite  minds  to  tell  what  is  over  beyond  the  wonderful 
river,  but  this  abides:  When  the  sun  has  risen  for  the  last  time  in 
life,  when  the  tide  is  just  about  to  turn,  when  there  have  been  years 
of  exile,  and  it  may  be  years  also  of  bitterness,  isolation  and  despair, 
one  great  yearning  rises  above  and  masters  every  other  emo- 
tion— the  yearning  just  to  get  home,  the  yearning  which  prompted 
the  old,  immemorial  question:  "  Are  we  not  almost  there?" 


108  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

ALWAYS  A  WOMAN. 

[Kansas  City  Timers  November  22,  1887.] 

It  was  a  woman,  and  a  beautiful  one  at  that,  in  that  terrible 
eastern  story  who,  when  the  night  deepened,  stole  away  from  the 
side  of  her  drugged  and  drunken  husband,  a  lord  of  armies  and 
kingdoms,  and  crowns  and  crept  to  the  hovel  and  the  arms  of  a 
beastly  ragpicker,  where  her  food  was  to  be  garbage  and  her 
caresses  blows. 

It  was  to  Lacenaire,  the  Paris  butcher,  who  killed  people  like 
fatted  hogs  and  sold  their  flesh  in  delightful  sausages,  that  a  grand 
dame  cried  out,  supposed  to  be  a  duchess :  "  They  will  cut  off 
your  head.  Very  well.  You  shall  have  as  many  masses  a$  a  king. 
Not  for  your  soul's  sake,  however,  but  your  sausages." 

Evidently  this  magnificent  animal  had  been  eating  some  of  the 
pork. 

When  Charlotte  Corday  forced  a  passage  into  the  bathroom  of 
that  wild  beast  Marat,  and  plunged  a  dagger  into  his  breast,  it  was 
a  woman  who  flew  upon  her  like  a  tigress,  knocked  her  down, leaped 
upon  her  ferociously,  tore  out  her  hair,  lacerated  her  face,  and  strove 
to  bite  out  her  flesh  by  mouthfuls.  "When  she  was  removed," 
says  Camille  Desmoulins,  who  reported  the  trial,  "the  face  of 
Marat's  mistress  was  as  bloody  as  if  she  had  that  moment  been  eat- 
ing raw  flesh  just  cut  from  a  recently  slaughtered  ox."  "  And  the 
prisoner  ?  "  inquired  the  judge.  "  Even  in  her  blood  she  was  beau- 
tiful. I  did  not  see  her  torn  and  disfigured  face,  however  ;  I  only 
saw  her  soul." 

Poor,  grandly-gifted,  intrepid,  unfortunate  journalist!  There 
came  a  day  when  even  your  colossus  Danton  could  not  save  you, 
and  when  this  one  little  speech  alone — though  only  a  sudden  out- 
burst of  pity,  or  tenderness,  or  romance — would  weigh  more  in  the 
scales  of  the  Terror,  which  was  to  try  you  than  did  the  gigantic, 
two-handed  sword  of  the  barbarian  Brennus  weigh  in  the  scales 
when  Rome  was  buying  back  her  very  life  with  jewels  and  precious 
and  golden  things  enough  to  freight  a  vessel. 

But  to  meaner  and  viler  things:  When  the  anarchists  had 
done  their  devil's  work  in  Chicago,  and  when  a  suddenly  awakened 
and  infuriated  country  was  demanding  that  those  who  preached 
dynamite  should  fare  equally  with  those  who  acted  dynamite,  the 
hunt  was  up  for  a  scrofulous,  pestiferous  fellow  who  needed  mer- 
cury badly  in  some  one  of  its  preparations  or  other,  called  Johann 
Most.  Where  was  he?  In  what  hiding  place  was  stowed  away  the 
carcass  of  this  slinking  cur  of  revolution,  barking  furiously  before 
danger  began  to  show  itself,  and  then — through  alleys  and  places 
where  offal  is  deposited — hurrying  away  to  a  congenial  kennel. 

One  day  they  found  him,  and  where  do  you  think?  Under  a 
woman's  bed.  And  there  sat  the  woman  in  front  of  his  place  of  con- 
cealment, rocking  as  blandly  as  the  May  winds  rock  the  apple  blos- 
soms and  singing  low  to  herself,  no  doubt,  as  her  scullion  hero 
crouched  under  the  bed,  some  song  of  the  grand  old  days  when 
lance-shaft  was  splintered  to  gauntlet-grasp  and  sword  blade  was 
shivered  at  the  hilt — something  which,  when  looking  out  upon  the 
wild  sea  of  fight  would  call  aloud  to  tell  of  one  peerless  leader  com- 
ing down  to  guide  its  vanguard: 

I  know  the  purple  vestment; 

I  know  the  crest  of  flame; 
So  ever  rides  Mamilius, 

Prince  of  the  Latian  name. 


MISCELLANEOTS  WRITINGS.  109 

One  respects  and  glorifies  the  heroic  Highland  maiden  Who  — 
when  the  bloodhounds  of  Claverhouse  were  hot  on  the  flying  foot- 
steps of  her  youthful  lover  — gave  him  shelter  under  her  hoops. 
The  moss  troopers  came;  entered  in;  ransacked  that  house  from 
cornerstone  to  rafter;  broke  into  closets ;  thrust  broadswords 
through  bedticks;  sounded  the  wainscoting;  knocked  in  the  heads 
of  hogsheads,  and  rummaged  every  box  and  barrel  capacious 
enough  to  hide  a  man;  but  no  fugitive.  There  sat  the  maiden, 
serene  and  smiling,  never  stirring  a  fold  of  her  dress,  or  lifting  so 
much  as  a  finger  from  her  lap.  Finally  the  fellows  of  the  broad- 
swords, and  they  were  slashing  fellows,  too,  bade  her  a  rough  good- 
bye as  they  rode  away.^  Then  out  popped  her  lover,  radiant.  Then 
he  wanted  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  caress  her.  Then  she  broke 
down,  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  cried  passionately:  "Go 
away!  Go  away!  Go  instantly!  I  hate  you!"  But  she  didn't, 
bless  her  pure,  virginal,  heroic  soul  "for,"  as  old  David  Ramsay 
says,  a  quaint  old  story-teller  of  the  olden  time,  "they  were  mar- 
ried after  the  evil  days,  and  Claverhouse  sent  a  young  peacock 
of  an  aide  to  dance  at  the  wedding."  But  under"  a  bed  with  a 
woman  on  guard !  Under  a  bed  and  he  a  man  of  war!  Under  a 
bed  and  he  the  fierce  evangel  of  a  new  crusade  —  of  bomb-shells, 
gunpowder,  fulminates  that  tear  mountains  to  pieces,  oaths  taken 
at  midnight  at  a  coffin  for  a  court,  pass-words,  grips,  signs,  signals, 
gabble,  gush,  rant,  cant  scoundrelism,  and  boom!  boom!  boom!  — 
Lord  of  Israel!  what  sort  of  a  woman  was  that  who  stood  guard 
over  that  sort  of  a  lover? 

But  a  little  more  of  Mr.  Most.  After  a  speech  in  New  York 
the  other  day,  notorious  for  its  blasphemy,  ferocity,  and  evil 
counsel,  the  law  laid  hold  of  him  and  brought  him  to  its  bar.  Bail,  of 
course, but  who  do  you  think  was  his  bondsman  ?  It  was  not  a  man 
at  all,  but  only  another  woman,  said  to  be  rich,  said  to  have  a  home, 
husband,  children,  property,  the  good  things  of  life,  and  to  be 
a  devout  believer  in  every  infernal  doctrine  put  forth  by  the  most 
advanced  anarchist. 

A  little  before  this,  yet  another  woman,  well  known  in  New  York 
took  upon  herself  the  task  of  erecting  a  monument  to  the  hanged 
scoundrels,  who  appeared  to  have  made  rampant  all  the  crankism 
latent  in  the  country.  She  swears  to  rest  neither  day  or  night  until 
she  has  raised  money  enough  to  carry  out  her  purpose.  "Audit 
shall  be  as  high  as  Washington's,  too,"  she  said,  defiantly,  to  a 
reporter,  "if  we  choose  to  make  it  so." 

We  frankly  confess  that  we  do  not  understand  anything  about 
the  whole  business.  Of  course,  in  the  bosom  of  every  woman  ever 
yet  born  into  the  world  there  is  something  of  the  nature  of  the 
tigress,  and  in  all  the  black  and  the  dark  things  of  a  man's  life, 
those  threads  which  are  blackest  and  go  mainly  to  make  up  the 
warp  and  the  woof,  are  always  woven  by  a  woman's  hand ;  but  the 
tigress,  is  a  cleanly  animal.  Gordon  Gumming  says  that  she  bathes 
three  times  a  day  in  her  native  jungles,  that  she  will  not  touch  the 
meat  she  has  not  slain,  and  that  for  her  offspring  she  is  the  bravest 
wild  beast  known  to  the  earth.  And  yet  what  could  this  bonds- 
woman for  Most  do  for  her  off  spring  if  anarchy  could  barely  once 
hold  the  city  of  New  York  for  twenty-four  hours. 

Whence  comes,  however,  to  sum  it  all  up,  this  morbid,  mon- 
strous, unaccountable  female  craving  for  making  heroes,  angels,  and 
models  out  of  all  sorts,  kinds,  and  conditions  of  murderers — men  who 
have  butchered  in  cold  blood.  Who  have  not  killed  in  open  com- 
bat, body  to  body  and  pistol  to  pistol,  but  have  ambushed  their  vie- 


110  JOHN  NE  \VMAX  EDWARDS. 

tims'and  slaughtered  them  before  they  could  turn  about.  Ogre 
murderers,  pitted  and  pustuled,  as  though  yet  iu  their  veins  and 
mixed  with  their  blood  there  still  flowed  the  incarnate  spirit  of 
small-pox.  Beetle-browed  murderers  their  ancestry  still  traceable 
to  some  traveling  showman's  escaped  chimpanzee.  Pert  young 
murderers  of  the  long  hair  order,  beginning  with  a  stolen  horse  and 
ending  by  killing  a  man  in  his  sleep  for  money.  Romantic  mur- 
derers, who  poison  friends,  pack  their  bodies  in  trunks  and  then  go 
off  in  a  blaze  of  glory,  leaving  behind  them  a  track  that  might  be 
followed  in  a  coach  and  four.  Mysterious  murderers — regular  dons 
of  fellows — low- voiced,  soft  of  speech,  perfumed,  affecting  jewelry, 
dirt  under  their  finger  nails,  and  kept  by  a  woman. 

But  whatever  the  kind  of  murderer,  he  gets  fresh  fruits,  flowers, 
visits  when  admissable,  sly  little  missives,  fondling  when  possible, 
books  marked  at  any  passage  that  is  amorous,  all  too  often  means  to 
escape,  money,  delicate  things,  bon-bons,  adulation,  flattery  x  hero 
worship,  sympathy,  pity,  and  tears. 

But  bring  to  the  attention  of  one  of  these  murderer  worshipers 
some  member  of  his  victim's  family  who  needed  help,  and  she  would 
draw  back  her  dainty  garments  as  though  they  might  be  touched  by 
the  finger  of  a  leper,  and  throw  a  kiss  to  her  beloved  as  she  flounced 
away  from  the  cell. 

But,  after  all,  nature  takes  care  of  such  creatures  as  these  called 
women?  Those  who  finally  do  not  die  through  pads,  stays,  corsets, 
and  bustles,  die  in  the  midst  of  an  apothecary  shop. 

MORE  LITERARY  MUTILATION. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  Dec.  12,  1887.] 

Sir  Richard  Burton  is  probably  the  ablest,  the  most  gifted,  and 
the  most  thoroughly  equipped  and  accomplished  Oriental  scholar 
any  English-speaking  country  ever  produced.  His  knowledge  of 
the  Arabic  language  is  almost  perfect, as  also  his  knowledge  of  East- 
ern customs  and  manners, Eastern  traditions,  superstitions,  and  folk 
lore,  and  especially  Eastern  literature,  which  he  delights  to  revel  in 
and  to  inhale  whatever  there  was  about  it  of  perfume,  languor,  dal- 
liance, and  love.  Well,  he  once  upon  a  time  made  a  literal  transla- 
tion of  the  "Arabian  Nights/'  accompanied  by  a  mass  of  invalua- 
ble notes,  which  threw  a  flood  of  light  upon  points  that  had  hitherto 
been  obscure — so  obscure,  indeed,  as  to  be  a  sealed  book  to  every- 
body. 

Only  1000  copies  of  the  translation  were  printed,  and  these 
instantly  found  their  way  into  the  hands  of  such  scholars  in  Eng- 
land, France,and  Germany  as  could  the  more  quickly  lay  hold  upon 
them. 

So  far  so  good,  but  now  comes  Lady  Burton,  with  her  edition 
of  her  husband's  great  work.  It  has  been  pruned,  trimmed,  dove- 
tailed, pared  down,  peruked,  periwigged,  pomatumed,  essenced,  and 
perfumed. 

Out  of  some  3,000  pages  of  the  famed  original,  she  makes 
the  modest  statement  that  she  has  only  found  it  necessary  to  cut  out, 
carve,  mutilate,  make  patchwork  of,  make  crazy-quilts  of, some  four 
or  five  hundred  !  As  for  the  notes  and  the  explanations  of  the  first  edi- 
tion, which  made  it  so  extremely  valuable  in  more  ways  than  one, 
what  about  them  ?  Have  they,  too,  been  sprinkled  with  rosewater, 
and  submitted  to  the  inspection  of  some  sacerdotal  mummy  who,  wea- 
ried out  long  ago  with  parish  tittle-tattle,  gossip  and  scandal,  has 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  HI 

withdrawn  to  his  own  hide-bound  sarcophagus,  hating  and  condemn- 
ing everything  which  comes  to  him  from  the  outside  world,  telling 
of  a  civilization  which  he  could  never  understand  because  of  its 
frankincense,  its  myrrh,  its  odors,  and  its  Odalisques,  and  because 
in  snuffle,  and  groan,  and  drone,  and  monotone,  it  is  not  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress, "or  "  Baxter's  Saints'  Rest." 

And  Lady  Burton's  self-confidence  over  what  she  has  done  in 
the  way  of  mutilation,  and  her  self-assurance  that  she  has  done  it 
so  well,  are  all  the  more  amusing  and  refreshing  because  of  the  fact, 
as  she  states  herself,  that  Justin  Himtley  McCarthy,  M.  P.,  assisted 
her  much  in  the  little  matter  of  expurgation. 

And  was  it  not  a  little  matter  ?  Only  some  four  or  five  hun- 
dred pages  out  of  3,000.  Only!  Why,  there  is  nothing  in 
thirf  world  that  could  furnish  a  counterpart  for  such  vandalism, 
unless  one  could  find  a  sculptor  greater  than  any  known  to  ancient 
or  modern  times,  who,  after  carving  out  a  magnificent  statue  of 
Apollo,  needing  only  life  to  be  a  god,  proposed  to  put  it  in  some 
great  gallery  of  art  for  the  world  to  see.  Before  doing  this,  how- 
ever, he  would  cut  away  a  leg,  saw  off  an  arm,  put  out  one  eye, 
pinch  a  piece  off  the  nose,  and  then  cry  aloud  to  everybody : 
"  Come  up  and  see  the  work  of  your  Phidias,  greater  than  whom 
no  sculptor  was  ever  born  upon  the  earth." 

But  why  go  on  ?  Juggled  with  and  cheated  in  all  sorts  of  ways 
— in  his  adulterated  flour,  sugar,  coffee,  pepper,  yeast  powder,wine, 
whisky,  beer,  brandy,  in  the  most  of  what  he  eats  and  what  he 
drinks,  why  should  this  easy-going,  rollicking,  broad-shouldered, 
good  natured  beast  of  all  burdens,  called  the  American,  draw  the 
line  at  his  literature  ?  Skimmed  milk  is  skimmed  milk,  no  matter 
whether  in  the  greasy  pot  of  a  swill-fed  dairy,  or  within  the  guilt 
and  gold  of  Lady  Burton's  dishwater  edition  of  her  husband's 
"Arabian  Nights." 

One  thing  more :  before  the  work  is  printed,  we  respectfully 
suggest  that  it  be  dedicated  to  Anthony  Comstock. 

CHRISTMAS  REJOICINGS. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  December  27, 1887.] 

It  is  well  to  make  Christmas  the  one  precious  holiday  of  the 
nation;  to  fill  it  full  of  mirth  and  good  cheer;  to  rest  from  labor  and 
have  a  reckoning  with  time;  to  open  the  heart  and  the  purse  to  every 
cry  of  sorrow  and  every  tale  of  distress;  to  remember  that  midnight 
sky  across  which  a  star  flashed  that  had  never  yet  been  seen  on  shore 
or  sea;  to  ask  why  in  that  lowly  manger  a  babe  was  found,  aboveits 
head  an  aureole,  and  in  its  eyes  the  light  of  a  mighty  revelation;  to 
recall  how  from  all  the  long,  cold,  cruel,  terrible  night  of  paganism 
there  came  forth  a  far  voice  in  the  wilderness  echoing  the  tidings  of 
a  New  Jerusalem;  think  over  all  that  Christianity  has  done  for  the 
world  and  it  may  yet  do  if  infidelity  does  not  defile  it;  politics 
debauch  it.  agnosticism  corrupt  it,  materialism  obscure  it,  perni- 
cious pulpit-teachings  emasculate  it,  and  brutal  sectarianism  finally 
eat  it  up  alive. 

That  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  deliverer  of  the  human  race,  and  the 
mysterious  link  connecting  the  transcendent  and  incomprehensive 
attributes  of  the  deity  with  human  sympathies  and  affections, 
should  be  considered  the  most  glorious  event  that  ever  happened 
and  the  most  worthy  of  being  reverently  and  joyously  commemo- 
rated, is  a  proposition  which  must  commend  itself  to  the  heart  and 


112  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

reason  of  every  one  of  His  followers  who  aspires  to  walk  in  His 
footsteps  and  share  in  the  ineffable  benefits  His  death  has  secured  to 
mankind. 

And  was  not  the  birth  of  our  Saviour  the  most  glorious  event 
that  ever  happened  in  all  history?  The  world  was  rotten  at  eveiy 
pore  and  vein  and  organ  and  artery  of  its  body.  Born  in  the  reign 
of  Tiberius  Caesar,  that  monster  of  everything  beastly  in  lust  and 
horrible  in  cruelty.  Rome — then  almost  the  mistress  of  everything 
known  of  either  land  or  water — was  given  up  wholly  to  war,  murdtr, 
pillage,  rape,  gladiatorial  butcheries,  and  excesses  of  other  kinds  so 
monstrous  and  so  unnatural  that  historians  have  not  yet  agreed  as  to 
their  origin,  whether,  in  fact,  they  were  borrowed  from  the  Greeks, 
the  Babylonians,  the  Assyrians,  or  from  a  race  in  further  Egj'pt, 
long  antedating  the  loves,  the  crimes,  the  sins  and  the  follies  of  Cleo- 
patra. Look  where  one  would,  chastity  was  the  exception  and  not 
the  rule.  Woman  was  literally  a  beast  of  burden  in  most  of  the 
nations,  and  was  bought  and  sold  as  a  ewe  or  a  heifer  upon  the  hoof. 
Polygamy  abounded.  Slavery  in  the  most  intolerable  form  ever 
known  to  man  universally  existed,  the  master  having  the  absolute 
power  of  life  and  death  over  his  slave.  War  was  little  less  than 
absolute  extermination,  Conquest  meant  either  depopulation, 
extinction,  or  absorption.  Some  of  the  massacres  surpassed  in 
extent  and  atrocity  every  thing  ever  yet  recounted  of  Timour  Lenk 
orZingis  Khan.  Out  of  this  sort  of  a  civilization  there  comes  forth 
a  Nero,  aPhalaris,  a  Caligula,  a  Domitian,aHeliogabalus,aMarius, 
and  aSylla — human  butchers  all,  possessed  of  a  thirst  for  blood  that 
never  knew  an  hour  of  appeasement  until  the  assassin's  hand  smote 
some,  and  death  in  the  fullness  of  their  years  smote  the  balance. 

Paganism  was  the  only  religion — if  such  indeed  it  can  be  called 
— and  it  taught  nothing  but  a  gross  and  licentious  materialism. 
To  live  was  simply  to  enjoy.  Possession  was  the  only  thing  need- 
ful to  struggle  for — the  possession  of  palaces,  slaves,  kingdoms, 
jewels,  concubines,  fine  linen,  spices,  wines,  wild  beasts,  shows, 
monster  circuses,  triumphal  processions,  luxury,  trophies,  monu- 
ments, temples,  and  legions  that  roamed  at  wilCbutchering  as  they 
roamed,  through  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa.  Might  was  right,  and 
the  sword  the  only  arbiter.  Mankind  appeared  to  have  but  one 
mission,  that  of  making  war,  in  which  the  strong  laid  hold  of  the 
weak,  and  either  slew  them,  exiled  them,  or  made  them  helpless 
and  pitiful  slaves. 

It  was  then  that  the  Judean  shepherds,  watching  their  flocks  by 
night,  saw  a  great,  strange  light  in  the  sky,  and  it  wTas  then,  in  a 
trough  of  a  stable  in  Bethlehem,  the  founder  of  a  new  faith,  a  new 
belief,  and  a  new  religion,  first  showed  himself  in  human  form  to  a 
world  which  was  to  put  Him  to  death  because,  in  full  accord  with 
His  heavenly  mission,  He  wished  to  redeem  and  save  it.  And  how 
feeble  and  helpless  the  struggle  first  appeared.  On  every  hand  was 
menace,  wrath,  unbelief,  and  despotic  power.  The  Roman  tyranny 
was  harsh  beyond  measure,  soulless,  and  omnipotent.  How  long 
would  paganism  tolerate  the  preaching  of  doctrines  which  were 
eventually  to  shatter  its  idols,  purify  its  temples,  and  convert  its 
worshipers.  And  yet  how  touching,  tender,  and  appealing  were 
the  doctrines  thus  preached.  Woman  was  enfranchised  and  made 
fit  to  become  the  helpmate  and  companion  of  man — to  adorn  his 
household,  rear  their  offspring,  teach  purity  and  virtue,  thereby 
making  the  family  homogeneous,  and  thereby  making  as  adamant 
the  foundations  upon  which  to  erect  the  two  precious  and  priceless 
fabrics  of  society  and  the  state.  When  polygamy  died  something 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  113 

like  human  freedom  began  to  take  vigorous  and  healthy  root  in  the 
earth.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  penetrated  and  illuminated  the 
surrounding  darkness,  as  Sinai  must  have  blazed  forth  as  some  huge 
mountain  on  fire  when  Moses  went  up  to  have  laid  upon  him  the 
command  of  the  Lord.  As  balm  softer  than  any  in  Gilead,  how  the 
inculcations  to  be  charitable  to  one  another,  and  good  to  one  another, 
and  just  and  forbearing  to  one  another,  must  have  fallen  upon  the 
ear  of  the  miserable  and  persecuted  in  every  laud — the  captive  in 
his  dungeon,  the  slave  in  his  fetters,  the  emperor  with  his  purple 
about  him,  and  the  beggar  in  his  rags  and  his  ulcers,  even  as  another 
Lazarus. 

And  then  the  promises  of  a  haven  of  rest  in  the  end.  Here  at 
last  was  something  tangible.  Here  at  last  was  something  which 
stopped  death's  power  to  make  the  grave  the  end  of  all — which 
robbed  the  grave  of  its  power  to  any  longer  to  make  of  its 
coffin  and  its  winding  sheet  utter  and  absolute  oblivion.  Here 
at  last  was  something  beyond  the  Jordan.  When  the  road 
had  been  rough,  and  weary,  and  desolate.  When  old  age  had 
come  on  apace,  and  all  the  air  was  full  of  farewells  for  the  dying. 
When  the  morning  was  never  so  bright  any  more  on  the  hill- 
tops, nor  the  twilight  ever  so  weird  and  strange  any  more  in  the 
valleys.  When  youth  had  seen  all  the  fires  of  its  aspirations  and 
ambitions  go  out  one  by  one  on  desolate  hearthstones.  When  fancy 
could  no  longer  fly  and  imagination  no  longer  take  wings  and  soar, 
fas  a  bird  that  soars  and  sings.  When  illusions  had  simply  become 
spectres  to  torment  or  affright.  When  the  light  had  so  soon,  so 
soon  died  out  of  the  loved  faces  of  the  early  doomed  and  dead. 
When  there  were  voices  in  the  air  that  nobody  could  hear,  and 
sounds  in  the  darkness  that  nobody  could  interpret.  When  the 
tottering  gait  had  well  nigh  reached  the  limit  of  its  strength,  and 
the  tremulous  hand  the  fullness  of  their  tension.  When  life  was 
felt  to  be  flaring  in  all  the  veins  as  a  taper^  about  to  be  spent,  and 
something  like  the  presence  of  the  Invisible  Angel  was  left  to  be 
at  the  door — here  then  at  last  was  the  blessed  promise  of  the  resurrec- 
tion. 

Is  it  any  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  Christian  world  hallows  the 
birthday  of  such  a  Redeemer — of  such  a  God  showering  upon  it 
such  a  multitude  of  inestimable  blessings?  The  whole  plan  of  sal- 
vation— fraught  as  it  is  with  so  many  glorious  promises  and  pledges 
— is  one  of  the  simplest,  purest,  and  most  easily  adopted  of  all  the 
other  aggregated  mass  of  teachings  and  revealments  the  ingenuity 
of  man  or  the  inspiration  of  so-called  potentates,  prophets,  or  powers, 
ever  intellectually  encompassed.  It  appeals  to  everything  that  is 
pure,  truthful,  clean,  upright,  and  unselfish  in  humanity. 

It  asks  for  nothing  that  is  not  good  to  grant  either  as  the  indi- 
vidual, the  citizen,  the  ruler,  the  conqueror,  or  as  a  simple  unit  in  the 
vast  volumes  of  the  population  which  people  the  earth.  Millions 
have  embraced  it  and  die  as  only  those  can  died  who  are  filled  with 
a  perfect  peace.  To  the  poor  and  afflicted  it  has  brought  such  con- 
solations as  made  grievous  burdens  less  difficult  to  be  borne,  and 
physical  pain  or  mental  agony  less  agonizing  in  its  tortures  and 
afflictions.  It  has  made  nations  merciful  and  the  strong  more  toler- 
ant and  helpful  of  the  weak.  It  has  resisted  a  legion  of  assaults, 
and  seen  a  legion  of  its  assailants  cast  down,  broken,  overwhelmed, 
or  disgraced^  Blessed,  therefore,  is  the  land  which  still  hallows, 
reveres,  and  celebrates  its  Christmas.  There  is  not  another  day  so 
momentous  in  all  ancient  or  modern  chronology. 


114  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

POOR  VALENTINE  BAKER. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  January  6, 1888.1 

It  is  all  very  well  now  to  sing  paeons  over  the  grave  where  Gen- 
eral Valentine  Baker  has  been  buried.  He  recks  not  now  of  any 
war-trumpet  that  may  be  busy  with  his  name  or  fame.  The  poet 
may  sing  of  his  sorrowful  and  tempestuous  life,  and  the  novelist  may 
make  of  him  a  hero  to  adorn  many  a  tale  and  romance;  but  he  is 
past  all  heeding  now— he  has  crossed  over  the  river  to  rest,  it  may 
be,  with  many  another  soldier  under  the  shade  of  the  trees. 

General  Valentine  Baker,  not  long  dead  of  a  sudden  heart 
trouble,  was  born  in  1831.  Joining  the  British  Army  in  1848,  he 
served  with  brilliant  courage  and  enterprise  in  Kaffir  land,  in 
India,  and  in  the  Crimea.  His  regiment  then  was  the  Twelfth 


quarters  of  the  globe. 
The  Prince  of  Wales  was  his  steadfast  friend — aye,  more  than  friend, 
for  they  were  roystering  companions  together.  When  the  Prince 
made  his  somewhat  celebrated  visit  to  this  country,  the  daring 
colonel  of  the  Tenth  Hussars  was  in  his  train,  a  confidential  adviser 
and  a  constant  attendant.  It  was  remarked  that  the  two  men 
seemed  inseperable. 

Fate  was  weaving  a  web  for  the  future,  however,  and  poor 
Baker  with  his  eyes  wide  open  went  straight  to  his  destiny. 

One  summer  night — flushed  somewhat  with  the  wine  of  the 
mess-table  and  the  wine  of  the  glorious  weather — he  was  riding  up 
from  the  camp  at  Aldershot  to  London.  In  the  same  railroad  apart- 
ment with  him  was  a  lady  whom  he  did  not  know,  whom  he  had 
probably  never  seen,  and  who  was  disposed  to  be  friendly,  at  least, 
if  not  a  little  free.  Some  courtly  conversation  was  held  between 
the  two,  and  Baker  saw  or  imagined  he  saw  an  opportunity  for  an 
intrigue.  Perhaps  he  pushed  his  suit.  No  doubt  he  would  not  take 
the  first  no  for  an  answer.  It  may  be  that  with  the  glamor  over  him 
he  came  too  near  for  a  man  who  came  to  be  denied ;  but  whatever  he 
did,  when  the  train  reached  London  the  woman  called  a  police 
officer,  told  her  story,  and  Baker  was  required  to  answer  at  a  court 
of  justice  the  next  morning. 

He  made  no  defense  publicly.  He  simply  said  to  the  magistrate, 
"I  have  sinned,  perhaps,  and  I  will  suffer.  Let  the  law  be  satis- 
fied." He  was  imprisoned  for  a  brief  period,  but  the  Queen,  when  his 
sentence  had  been  served  out.took  his  regiment  away  from  him, drove 
him  from  the  army,  and  so  branded  him  that  he  was  octracised  by  soci- 
ety in  all  its  mean,  petty,  abject  and  malignant  ways,  until  Valen- 
tine Baker  sought  service  with  the  Turk.  The  Russo-Turkish  War 
of  1877-8  was  just  on  the  eve  of  outbreak,  and  the  Sultan  made  him 
a  major  general  and  assigned  him  to  the  command  of  the  gendarmerie 
or  what  would  be  called  in  this  country  home-guards.  This  he 
perfectly  drilled  and  disciplined,  and  afterwards — when  the  war 
was  becoming  every  day  more  bloody  and  desperate — he  was  given 
a  division  of  regulars  and  sent  rapidly  to  the  front.  At  the  Balkans 
he  fought  splendidly,  was  decorated  by  the  Sultan,  and  undoubt- 
edly saved  the  army  of  Suleiman  Pasha,  then  in  full  retreat  for 
Adrianople. 

Over  and  over  again  appeals  were  made  to  Queen  Victoria  to 
reinstate  him  in  the  British  army,  but  they  might  just  as  well  have 
been  made  to  a  stone.  The  Prince  of  Wales  never  forsook  him,  and 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  115 

made  two  touching  personal  requests  of  his  mother  in  regard  to  him, 
but  her  obdurate  heart  never  melted  for  a  moment.  Until  his  dying 
day  the  sentence  of  the  court-martial  stood  over  against  his  name 
unexpunged. 

Once  he  told  the  true  story  of  his  railroad  adventure,  but  not  for 
the  purpose  of  softening  the  Queen  or  begetting  sympathy.  His  first 
advances,  he  said,  were  unobjectionable.  The  woman  appeared 
rather  to  return  his  expressed  admiration,  and  to  be  not  averse  to  a 
little  coquetry.  Desiring  to  make  the  flirtation  a  little  more  emphatic 
on  his  part,  she  stopped  him  curtly,  and  that  was  the  end.  After- 
ward he  spoke  no  word  to  her  that  was  not  perfectly  proper  and 
respectful.  The  entire  British  army  believed  him,  as  did  as  well 
almost  the  entire  British  public,  outside  of  the  army. 

By  and  by  there  were  troubles  in  Egypt,  and  thither  went 
Baker,  the  soldier  instinct  still  powerful  upon  him,  and  a  great 
yearning  still  in  all  his  being  to  fight  for  his  country,  even  though  he 
fought  under  a  foreign  flag. 

At  Tel-a-Kebir,  Baker  was  among  the  first  to  storm  the  works 
of  Arab!  Pasha.  Afterward  Osman  Digna  grew  bold,  grew  ram- 
pant, grew  defiant,  and  Baker  marched  to  encounter  him  with  a 
small  Egyptian  force  of  ragamuffins.  British  soldiers  were  denied 
him,  but  he  went  forward  without  them.  At  El  Teb  the  Arabs 
delivered  one  volley  and  charged  home.  The  Egyptians  did  not  even 
wait  to  receive  the' onset.  They  fled  ignominiously,  and  the  flight 
was  a  massacre.  In  the  rear,  and  almost  alone,  Baker  made  heroic 
efforts  to  rally  his  men,  but  if  he  had  been  a  desert  sand  dune  talk- 
ing to  the  wind  he  could  have  made  no  less  impression.  Finally  he 
was  shot  in  the  leg.  There  were  scars  of  a  half  dozen  worse 
wounds  on  his  body,  and  he  paid  no  attention  to  this.  When  near 
to  succor,  and  almost  within  shoulder  touch  of  the  British  lines,  an 
iron  ball  tore  through  his  left  jaw,  destroyed  the  sight  of  one  eye, 
knocked  him  from  his  horse,  and  knocked  him  "insensible.  In 
another  moment  he  would  have  been  speared  to  death,  but  of  a 
sudden  a  defiant  bugle  note  rang  out  loud  and  shrill  and  challeng- 
ing, and,  if  he  then  could  have  looked  up  and  looked  forward,  lie 
might  have  seen  his  own  idolized  regiment,  the  Tenth  hussars,  rush- 
ing down  to  the  rescue,  % 

If  he  had  lived  until  the  Prince  came  regularly  to  the  throne 
he  would  have  been  restored  instantly  to  his  own  again;  but,  poor 
fellow,  fate  would  not  even  let  him  do  that.  He  died  at  Ismalia, 
far  from  his  own  sea  girt  land,  and  almost  before  he  could  say  fare- 
well to  those  about  him  or  leave  a  single  little  message  for  the  loved 
ones  that  were  not  by. 

We  were  aware  of  the  claims  now  being  made  that,  if  he  had 
lived  a  little  longer,  the  Queen,  taking  advantage  of  her  jubilee  year, 
would  have  restored  him  to  the  ranks  of  the  British  army — in  fact, 
making  such  restoration  a  crowning  act  of  mercy  and  grace.  If  she 
ever  entertained  anintention  so  righteous  as  this,  red  tape  prevented 
its  fulfillment.  How  pitiful  sound  the  remarks  made  about  him  by 
a  distinguished  general  officer,  who  was  also  his  intimate  friend: 
"It  is  sad  to  think  of  the  poor  fellow  lying  upon  his  sick  bed, 
heartbroken  with  the  many  disappointments  he  had  experienced. 
All  his  hope  had  centered  on  the  jubilee  year,  yet  it  seemed  drawn 
to  a  close  without  the  Queen  having  shown  any  sign  of  relenting. 
It  is  then  easy  to  understand  how,  in  Baker's  weakened  condition, 
desire  to  live  may  have  died  out,  for  he  knew  nothing  of  the  pleas- 
ant surprise  in  store  for  him.  Could  he  but  have  realized  the  cer- 
tainty of  his  restoration,  the  poor  fellow  would  probably  have  been 


116  JOHN  NEWilAX  EDWARDS. 

living  still.  The  Queen's  pardon  came  too  late,  and  all  that  his  sor- 
rowing friends  can  now  do  is  to  join  in  raising  a  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  one  who  was  a  far  better  man  than  many  whom  the 
world  delights  to  honor." 

It  certainly  can  not  be  denied  that  after  life's  fitful  fever  he  will 
sleep  well. 

ROSCOE  CONKLING. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  18,  1888.] 

"  A  great  man  has  fallen  this  day  in  Israel." 

At  the  grave's  side  no  one  should  write  of  him  except  as  a  typi- 
cal American  citizen.  If  there  had  been  anything  of  dross,  death's 
crucible  left  only  the  gold  in  its  value  and  purity.  On  the  shroud 
there  was  noplace  for  hands  that  might  have  smutched  it  with  par- 
tisanship; in  the  coffin  there  was  no  place  for  the  cold  formula  of 
political  creeds— no  place  for  the  cold  presentment  of  any  Nemesis 
born  of  the  fierce  struggles  and  passions  common  to  all  men  who 
follow  a  flag  and  fight  its  party's  battles. 

Coukling  was  a  proud  man — proud  of  his  clean  hands,  his  clean 
public  record,  his  clean  professional  life,  his  clean  personal  charac- 
ter. He  lived  in  an  atmosphere  where  scandal  never  came.  Under 
the  terrible  stress  and  strain  of  fifteen  years  of  war  and  reconstruc- 
tion, with  his  armor  scarcely  ever  off,  and  his  naked  blade  scarcely 
ever  at  rest  in  its  scabbard,  he  fought  a  savage  fight,  but  always  in 
the  open.  Others  tortured;  he  desired  to  draw  the  line  at  the  not 
unreasonable  utilization  of  the  North's  unmistakable  victory  over 
the  South.  Jobbers  swarmed  about  him;  he  barred  the  treasury 
doors  the  best  he  could  through  all  those  terrible  days  of  rapine, 
confiscation,  and  the  gathering  together  of  the  birds  of  prey.  Oiheis, 
sodden  with  the  thrift  which  follows  the  fawning  of  demagogues, 
cringed  constantly  at  the  feet  of  Lincoln  and  Grant;  Conkliug 
stood  splendidly  erect  as  some  huge  column  supporting  an  edifice 
wherein  Solomon  might  have  greeted  and  reveled  with  the  Qiuen 
of  Sheba. 

And  horn  he  hated  a  little,  a  mean,  a  sneaking,  or  a  contc  n>]  t- 
ible  thing.  The  man's  whole  nature  seems  to  have  had  wir^s 
especially  granted  to  soar  above  tbe  partisan  hrgs  in  their  stk  s; 
the  partisan  bullocks  horning  one  another  off  from  the  troughs  of 
public  plunder.  No  margins  tempted  him;  no  ring  allurements, 
seductive  at  every  step  with  valuable  spoils,  ever  attracted  his  atten- 
tion ;  no  lobbyist  ever  dared  to  approach  him  with  a  special  plea  ; 
across  the  black  page  of  the  De  Golyer  contracts,  and  the  infamous 
paj-roll  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  thieves,  no  mortal  eye  ever  saw 
written  thereon  the  white  name  of  Roscoe  Conkling.  Can  the  same 
be  said  for  the  apostolic  sniveler  who  tried  to  humble  him,  to  break 
that  proud  spirit,  to  shear  the  locks  from  that  stalwart  Samson,  to 
chain  him  to  the  chariot  wheels  of  a  detested  secretary  of  state,  to 
insult  him  in  the  house  of  his  friends,  to  crack  a  master's  whip  and 
bid  him  surrender,  to  banish  from  all  part  or  lot  in  a  Republican 
administration  this  heroic  Warwick,  only  knowing  how  to  spend 
millions  for  defense  but  not  a  cent  for  tribute  ? 

Conscious  of  the  perfect  rectitude  of  a  life  so  far  spent  in  the 
service  of  his  friends  and  his  party,  not  capable  of  becoming  a  dwarf , 
that  he  might  escape  the  volleys  of  that  pigmy  brood  which  had 
come  into  ephemeral  life  through  the  last  bloody-shirt  foment  of 
reconstruction  politics,  and  unable  to  consort  with  the  man-buyers 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  117 

of  the  Pension  Bureau  and  the  two-dollar  inundators  of  Indiana, 
with  Star-route  Dorsey  opening  the  sluices  and  the  dykes,  he  put 
away  politics  and  went  proudly  out  into  the  ranks  of  the  honest 
working  people,  where  he  knew  the  air  to  be  pure,  and  where  he 
was  positive  that  he  could  still  maintain  his  consoling  self-respect 
and  liis  spotless  honor. 

And  now  he  is  dead  in  his  prime.  Possessed  of  an  intellect 
equal  to  that  of  any  of  the  great  ones  gone.  Quiet,  studious,  and 
devoted  to  his  profession.  Not,  perhaps,  what  in  these  days  might 
be  called  a  popular  leader — because  his  standard  was  too  high  and 
his  will  too  unbending — he  would  have  been  wise  in  counsel,  mas- 
terful in  a  cabinet,  and  superb  in  the  field.  Intolerance  of  shams 
made  liim  appear  at  times  lordly,  supercilious,  and  dictatorial;  but 
behind  the  semblance  was  the  substance,  and  in  extremity  every- 
thing else  was  unreckoned  of  except  the  iron.  There  was  nruch  in 
common  between  himself  and  General  Grant,  and  this  fact  will  go 
far  to  explain  their  unselfish  and  unbroken  friendship.  Grant  never 
whined ;  neither  did  Conkling.  Grant  was  firm,  resolute  and  indom- 
itable; so  was  Conkling.  Very  late  in  his  second  term  Grant  had 
at  last  discovered  the  snares  and  the  pitfalls  prepared  for  him  by 
his  toadies  and  his  flatterers;  Conkling  long  before  had  foreseen 
their  danger  and  hastened  to  his  chief  with  heartfelt  and  valuable 
warnings.  Grant  confided  in  many,  Conkling  infew;  but  the  middle 
ground  upon  which  they  both  met  and  fraternized  was  the  loyal 
respect  one  had  for  the  other.  This,  being  always  the  bond  of  com- 
munion, no  matter  the  separate  road  each  took  in  response  to  its 
bidding,  each  always  reached  it  simultaneously.  Hence,  amid  the 
wreck  of  all  things  dear  to  Grant's  ambition  at  Chicago,  Conklicg 
went  down  with  the  colors. 

He  died  too  soon.  There  would  have  been  a  mighty  work  for 
him  to  have  done  in  the  near  future.  To  many  thinking  men  the 
nation  is  on  the  eve  of  a  crisis.  There  are  elements  this  day  at 
work  which  are  yet  to  make  patriotism  once  more  as  precious  as 
when  our  forefathers  pledged  to  freedom  whatever  they  bad  of  life, 
of  property,  and  of  sacred  honor.  There  will  come  by  and  by  ques- 
tions to  be  settled — some  of  them  pressing,  some  undeniable,  some 
perhaps  perilous — which  will  need  for  their  grappling  some  such  in- 
tellect as  Conkling's — clear,  incisive,  luminous;  imbued  somewhat 
with  omniscience;  not  afraid  of  the  knife,  still  less  of  1he  caustic; 
seeing  the  entire  Union,  unobscured  as  to  the  paltry  efficacy  of  par- 
tisan panaceas,  serene  even  with  the  ship  in  the  breakers,  pon- 
tifical like  a  priest's,  aggressive  like  a  soldier's — where  is  there  such 
an  one  left  for  such  emergencies  in  New  York,  where  indeed  in  the 
United  States? 

There  be  makeshifts  in  abundance — doughty  political  physi- 
cians who  treat  symptoms  but  never  the  disease  itself.  The  land  is 
full  of  inanities  that  gambol  on  the  political  green  as  lambs  do  in 
blue-grass  pastures,  when  April  is  in  the  air,  and  the  south  wind 
tells  what  it  yet  intends  to  do  for  the  buds  and  blossoms.  There 
are  quacks,  and  formulas,  and  nostrums  by  the  shipload.  There 
are  babblers  of  finance,  and  men  in  buckram  to  organize  and  util- 
ize labor  movements.  There  are  multitudinous  makers  of  trusts, 
eating  up  the  substance  of  the  people,  and  feeding  competition  on 
husks  and  shavings;  but  where  are  the  giants  to  keep  the  faith  and 
keep  this  blessed  land  from  mortal  injury?  One  has  just  fallen 
prostrate  as  some  great  oak  falls,  never  to  rise  again. 


118  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

ON  SOUTHERN  POETS. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  14, 1888.] 

The  Atlanta  Constitution,  in  dealing  quite  lengthily  the  other 
day  with  Southern  poetry  and  poets,  seems  only  to  know  and  put 
forward  three:  Father  Ryan,  Sidney  Lanier,  and  Paul  H.  Hayne. 
It  is  well.  No  word  is  said  amiss  of  these.  If  in  a  garden  of  flow- 
ers, they  would  have  been  roses;  if  in  a  forest  of  trees,  they  would 
have  been  oaks.  But  the  horizon  was  not  far  enough  away,  the 
vision  was  too  much  contracted.  Any  Southern  sky  with  only 
three  stars  in  it  is  not  a  benignant  sky.  Neither  is  it  a  sky  under 
which  the  mocking  birds  will  sing  their  merriest  and  the  young 
lovers  linger  out  longest,  none  nearer  to  listen  to  the  old,  old  story 
than  the  passion  flowers  at  the  gate. 

Where  is  Poe,  that  strange,  weird,  and  still  undefinable  genius, 
whose  every  verse  was  a  wail,  whose  every  heart-beat  was  super- 
natural, and  whose  every  gesture  took  ^  hold  upon  death?  Not  a 
poet,  you  say?  If  this  be  so,  then  what  is  poetry?  If  it  be  poetry 
to  make  the  flesh  creep  and  to  be  cold  and  hot  by  turns,  then  Poe 
was  the  wizard  of  such  emotions.  He  was  the  man  who  conjured 
up  ghosts,  he  was  the  man  who  so  peopled  the  imagination  with 
horrors  that  it  became  haunted.  Hayne  never  did  this.  His  flight 
was  too  near  the  earth  to  hear  songs  that  were  never  sung  and  words 
that  were  never  spoken. 

Where  is  Dr.  F.  O.  Tick  or  and  his  "Little  Giffen  of  Tennessee," 
a  lyric  which  will  remain  immortal  while  the  language  lasts. 

•'Out  of  the  focal  and  foremost  fire. 
Out  of  the  hospital  walls  as  dire, 
Smitten  of  grapeshot  and  gangrene. 
Eighteenth  battle  and  he  sixteen 
Spectre !  such  as  you  seldom  see, 
Little  Giffen  of  Tennessee." 

Where  is  Harry  B.  Flash,  the  lyrical  music  in  him  as  splendid 
as  in  a  military  band  playing  as  it  might  play  if  it  were  playing  for 
Leonidas  ?  Where  the  poems  indeed  from  which  we  make  an  extract  ? 

"By  blue  Patapsco's  billowy  dash, 
The  tyrant's  war  shout  comes, 
Along  with  the  cymbals'  fitful  clash, 
And  the  growl  of  the  sullen  drums." 

Where  is  James  R.  Randall  with  "Maryland,  My  Maryland," 
and  fifty  other  ungathered  fugitives  just  as  exquisite  ? 

Where  is  John  R.  Thompson — tender,  musical,  a  ballad  maker 
as  perfect  as  Rossetti,  a  weaver  of  words  as  unequaled  as  Tennyson? 
Where  is  Henry  Timrod,  death's  hand  on  him  at  nineteen,  with 
enough  odes  to  make  a  gold  mine  out  of  a  sassafrass  thicket  ? 

Where  is  W.  W.  Harney  with  his  "sudden  stabs  in  groves  for- 
lorn," andthat  "Blockade  Running,"  where  one  old  classmate  striving 
for  Wilmington  called  out  to  another  old  classmate  who  was  pur- 
suing : 

"You'll  want  boots  to  follow  me 
All  nisrht,"  said  the  master, 
"With  your  wrought  iron  roster, 
Old  Geordie  of  Maine." 

Where  is  Samuel  Minturn  Peck,  who  can  be  as  quaint  as  James 
Whitcomb  Riley,  as  exquisitely  tender  as  Riley,  and  as  full  of  that 
rare  pathos  which  makes  the  fingers  of  poetry  take  hold  of  the  heart- 
strings ? 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  119 

Not  one  of  these  does  the  Constitution  touch,  nor  lift  up,  nor  put 
in  a  frame,  nor  hang  lovingly  in  its  sanctum.  This  should  not  be. 
Scant  praise  at  best  has  Southern  literature  or  Southern  writers  ever 
received  from  any  source,  but  mainly  because  neither  had  an  audi- 
ence. Their  territory  now,  however,  is  widening  and  becoming 
more  populous.  It  is  not  right  just  at  this  peculiar  juncture  to 
make  any  invidious  distinctions.  The  Constitution's  field  is  almost 
too  limited  to  breathe  in,  much  less  to  do  a  good  day's  plowing.  Its 
Pantheon  is  wofully  lacking  in  gods.  It  is  a  temple  with  only  three 
shrines,  while  all  the  outside  and  abounding  space  is  as  desolate  as  a 
forest  without  leaves.  Perhaps  it  will  fill  it  later. 

As  for  the  Southern  women  who  have  written  poetry,  we  have 
nothing  to  say,  unless  it  "would  be  to  ask  the  question  :  Did  a 
woman  ever  write  poetry  ?  If  one  ever  did  it  has  surely  not  been 
Miss  Rives  in  her  "  Herod  and  Mariamne." 

AS  TO  KING  DATID. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  16, 1888.] 

Mr.  Ernest  Renan,  who  was  once  a  priest,  and  who  even  now 
professes  to  live  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  is  again  busily  engaged  in 
taking  venerable  and  respected  tradition  to  pieces.  Having  already 
finished  with  Christ  and  His  Apostles — having  already  dealt  as  he 
was  best  able  with  the  New  Testament,  he  has  now  turned  him  to 
the  Old — and  it  is  King  David  who  comes  first  under  fire. 

Renan  has  a  peculiarintellectual  development,  even  fora  French- 
man. No  writers  of  this  or  any  other  century  ever  equaled  the 
French  for  lucidity  of  statement;  the  vivid  power  of  illustration; 
a  satire  that  is  perfectly  exquisite;  delightful  badinage;  an  irony 
which  never  purposely  corrodes,  but  if  purposely  then  only  upon 
occasion;  swift  movement;  the  commingling  of  tragedy  and  com- 
edy;  an  inherent  dramatic  encompassment  that  is  never  at  a  loss  for 
similes  or  situations — while  to  marshal  all  these  as  is  desirable, 
using  either  of  itself  or  the  whole  together  as  a  mass,  there  is  the 
scaccato  or  epigrammatic  style  which  to  all  others  is  so  incomparable. 
None  can  write  biography  like  the  French.  As  for  memoirs,  these 
in  their  hands  are  unapproachable. 

Renan  has  every  one  of  these  valuable  gifts  at  his  disposal — 
always  valuable  to  an  author — and  he  has  more.  Pie  has  the  educa- 
tion of  a  Jesuit.  This  means  about  fifteen  years  of  hard,  uninter- 
rupted study  before  it  is  supposed  that  a  man  knows  anything.  He 
is  the.  fluent  master  of  ten  languages,  among  the  ten  being  Persian, 
Turkish,  the  Hebrew,  and  the  Arabic.  Probably  at  least  three  of 
these  he  learned  in  order  all  the  more  readily  to  get  at  the  Bible  and 
attempt  to  destroy  many  of  its  idols  yet  dear  to  the  human  heart. 

Before  he  began  his  "  Life  of  Christ "  he  spent  three  years  in 
Egypt  and  Palestine,  The  Sultan  then  owned  the  two  countries, 
and  hence  his  knowledge  of  the  Turkish  and  Arabic  must  have 
stood  him  in  most  excellent  stead.  His  sister  accompanied  him,  an 
enthusiast  like  himself,  as  he  was  then.  They  went  anywhere  and 
everywhere.  They  appeared  to  have  no  idea  of  fear.  When  night 
came  they  pitched  their  tents.  The  Arabs  did  not  seem  to  understand 
them;  the  Bedouins  forgot  to  even  ask  them  for  backsheesh. 

The  sister  never  returned.  She  died  under  a  date  palm  in  the 
desert,  tenderly  nursed,  it  is  true,  having  skillful  physicans  at  her 
side,  and  plenty  of  female  attendants.  But  the  priest,  where  was 
he?  Her  brother?— no,  her  God. 


120  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Time  went  on,  and  Renan  got  further  and  further  away  from 
the  sweet  recollections  of  his  college  days,  from  the  tender  influ- 
ences of  a  gentle  and  benignant  life,  from  the  restraints  of  an  intel- 
lectual discipline  that  he  so  much  needed  as  a  safeguard  against 
spiritual  shipwreck,  from  well  ordered  fields  wherein  nothing  grew 
that  was  noxious  or  told  of  harm,  from  old  friends  and  old  associa- 
tions, and  the  end  then  came  speedily.  The  ardent  young  believer 
was  a  hardened  skeptic.  He  had  grown  gray  in  unbelief  in  anight. 
Endowed  as  he  was  intellectually,  what  a  spectacle  and  what  a  ruin! 
Using  the  gifts  which  Providence  had  so  lavishly  bestowed  upon 
him  to  enlighten  and  succor  mankind,  he  squandered  them  in  terri- 
ble attacks  upon  the  very  foundation  of  society  itself. 

And  they  were  terrible,  these  attacks  of  his.  The  "Life  of 
Christ"  is  one  of  the  most  insidious,  dangerous,  yet  attractive 
books  in  any  language.  The  danger  lies  in  its  distillation.  Its 
poison  tastes  like  honey.  On  the  edge  of  every  pitfall  there  is  a 
fringe  of  roses.  This  fringe  is  also  a  screen.  One  reaches  out  for 
a  rose  and  instead  finds  engulf ment.  The  full  flow  and  flood  of  the 
tide  of  the  narrative  is  poetry  set  to  music.  As  the  children  fol- 
lowed the  flute  of  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin  into  the  heart  of  the 
mountain,  never  to  be  seen  of  mortal  again,  so  young  men  follow 
the  words  and  the  thoughts  of  this  wizard  of  the  pen,  and  the  result 
in  all  too  many  cases  is  the  hardening  of  the  heart  and  the  stiffening 
of  the'neck. 

His  ' '  Lives  of  the  Apostles  "  is  not  so  sweet  to  the  taste  nor  so 
delightful  to  the  palate.  It  jars  often.  It  is  at  times  harsh,  rasp- 
ing, bitter.  Not  content  with  killing  his  victim  he  often  chooses  to 
skin  him.  As  he  gets  older  of  course  this  spirit  will  grow  upon 
him.  He  will  not  seek  to  seduce  so  much  from  this  on  as  to  demol- 
ish. Scantier  and  scantier  will  become  the  wine  he  offers  from  his 
own  clear  champagne  country,  and  plentier  and  plentier  the  acrid 
brew  and  the  brew  which  burns  like  acid. 

One  can  easily  see  this  sort  of  feeling  deepening  over  and  about 
Renan  in  his  recent  comments  upon  David.  In  three  numbers  of  a 
leading  Paris  review  he  has  dealt  with  this  King  of  Israel.  He 
describes  him  as  a  black-hearted  hypocrite.  A  selfish  egotist, 
incapable  of  a  sentiment  of  sympathy  or  a  disinterested  idea.  A 
coward  in  war,  who  wept  over  Absalom  and  then  broke  bread  with 
his  murderer.  He  declares  that  he  kept  a  harem,  and  that,  although 
he  did  dabble  to  some  extent  in  poetry,  he  never  wrote  the  Psalms. 
He  contrasts  him  with  Saul,  making  of  one  a  hero  and  a  warrior  of 
great  renown — of  the  other  a  sneak  and  a  trickster.  David's  deed 
of  putting  Uriah  in  front  of  the  battle  to  be  killed  as  he  was,  in 
order  to  take  to  wife  his  beautiful  widow  Bathsheba,  is  made  into  a 
ferocious  picture  which  probably  no  other  hand  could  paint  except 
the  hand  of  such  a  monster. 

But  the  question  arises,  and  it  is  a  very  natural  one.  What  has 
brought  about  this  exhumation  of  David?  And  what  will  happen 
to  Solomon  when  Renan  gets  to  him,  who  was  the  son  of  that  very 
Bathsheba  the  savage  Frenchman  has  just  taken  as  a  text  to  crucify 
her  imperial  ravisher?  One  can  see  no  earthly  good  to  arise  from  it 
all.  If  Renan  writes  just  to  see  how  powerfully  he  can  write,  then 
it  must  be  admitted  that  he  does  it  to  perfection,  although  his 
inspiration  now  appears  to  be  of  the  devil . 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  121 

DR.  JOSEPH  M.  WOOD. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  20, 1888.] 

One  of  the  lights  of  the  medical  world — clear,  luminous,  a  great 
beacon  set  as  it  were  upon  a  high  hill — has  suddenly  gone  out  for- 
ever. How  death  must  have  rejoiced  when  it  laid  him  low.  No 
more  mortal  enemy  of  the  inexorable  destroyer  ever  lived  in  the 
land.  For  more  than  fifty  years  man  and  boy  he  grappled  with  it, 
rescued  its  victims,  drove  it  from  bedsides  almost  ready  for  the 
shroud,  fought  it  hand  to  hand  across  a  coverlet,  routed  it  from 
households  where  every  room  was  an  intrenchment,  smote  it  until 
even  its  terrors  were  put  to  flight,  snapped  the  shaft  of  its  imme- 
morial spear  in  sheer  derision,  taunted  it  with  its  impotency,  and 
filially  became  such  an  implacable  foe  that  it  seemed  to  avoidhimas 
it  he  were  superhuman. 

And  now  to  think  that  in  this  last  encounter,  he  who  had  saved 
so  many  could  not  save  himself.  But  then  this  splendid  defender  of 
his  race  had  grown  gray  in  the  war  harness.  An  active  battle  well 
on  to  fifty  years  long  had  left  him  worn,  and  old,  and  less  able  to 
withstand  the  final  onset.  He  had  the  frame  of  a  giant — yes,  but 
he  had  also  done  the  work  of  a  giant.  He  had  the  strength  of  any 
four  ordinary  men — yes,  but  he  put  it  forth  so  lavishly  in  supplying 
the  demands  of  his  profession  that  when  he  needed  a  reserve  for 
himself  that  reserve  had  been  exhausted.  He  had  the  buoyant  life 
and  vitality  of  some  great  conquerer — yes,  even  as  Cortez,  but  he 
poured  them  all  out  for  others,  never  caring  seemingly  to  know  if 
a  day  would  not  come  when  a  little,  at  least,  of  this  vast  wealth 
should  have  been  laid  away  for  the  final  grapple. 

And  yet  how  could  he  see  or  know  or  care  about  any  of  these 
things— thow  could  he  take  note  to  day  what  might  happen  or  be 
required  for  to-morrow?  He  lived  for  others.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  generous,  unselfish  and  lovable  of  men.  A  tale  of  want,  or 
sorrow,  or  suffering  made  him  as  a  little  child,  he,  this  giant  of  a  sur- 
geon, whose  very  operating  knife  had  about  it  something  almost  of 
inspiration.  The  record  of  his  good  deeds  could  only  have  been 
written  by  the  recording  angel.  And  they  have  been  so  written, 
never  fear.  And  many  a  page  they  took,  shining  all  over  and 
through  as  though  the  pinions  of  the  heavenly  dove  had  been  folded 
there  to  make  them  blessed  and  resplendent. 

Why,  this  man  would  often  wait  for  the  darkness  to  cover  him 
before  he  departed  on  his  missions  of  mercy.  He  wrought  out  the 
miracles  both  of  his  heart  and  his  intellect  by  stealth. 

To  surprise  him  in  any  act  of  charity  was  to  put  him  to  flight. 
If  any  one  ever  spoke  of  it  in  his  presence  he  would  go  away  pained. 
That  hand  which  was  all  iron,  when  the  steel  was  in  it,  was  always 
open  when  it  became  necessary  to  succor  as  well  as  to  save.  No 
matter  what  the  nature  of  the  succor  was — whether  money,  medi- 
cines, food,  raiment,  care,  watchfulness,  professional  attendance, 
hired  nurses — he  never  hesitated  a  single  moment  to  open  his  purse 
or  bestow  his  precious  attainments  upon  the  needy  and  the  afflicted. 
Even  if  his  own  life  had  ever  depended  upon  an  accurate  summing 
up  of  all  these  abounding  charities,  to  save  it  he  could  not  have  made 
a  report  of  even  a  fractional  part.  Verily,  with  him  the  hand  that 
did  not  give  never  knew  in  a  single  instance  what  the  hand  which 
did  give  was  doing. 

Once,  when  cholera  was  sweeping  from  the  east  to  the  west,  and 
over  the  plains,  and  across  the  Rocky  Mountains,  ravaging  remorse- 


122  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

lessly  where  it  touched,  Dr.  Wood  was  coming  from  St.  Louis  to 
Liberty  Landing  on  a  crowded  emigrant  steamer.  The  steerage 
swarmed  with  poor  folks,  men,  women  and  children.  Piercing  as 
the  neigh  of  a  frightened  horse  the  cry  arose  that  the  White  Specter 
— which  leaves  the  faces  of  all  those  whom  it  has  undone  so  pinched 
and  pallid  and  wan — was  aboard  the  boat,  doing  the  same  old 
inevitable  work  that  it  had  been  doing  from  its  home  on  the  Ganges 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Dr.  Wood  was  just  then  in  the  very  strength  and  flower  of  his 
young  manhood.  Life  was  so  fair,  so  fair  before  him.  Perfect 
physical  health  and  perfect  physical  manhood  made  all  nature 
delicious,  and  all  the  world  adorable.  Every  road  which  ran  to  the 
future  had  upon  it  growing  grasses  and  blooming  flowers,  and  sing- 
ing birds  in  all  the  branches  of  the  trees.  Death  was  below  him  in 
its  most  appalling  character. 

He  went  below.  For  nearly  a  week  so  far  from  going  to  bed 
he  never  even  took  off  his  clothes.  He  did  the  work  of  a  dozen 
men.  His  frame,  which  up  to  that  time  had  been  colossal,  now  sud- 
denly came  to  be  iron.  Hir  nature  took  upon  itself  attributes  even 
unknown  to  their  possessor.  He  was  physician,  nurse,  undertaker, 
consoler,  confessor,  musician— but,  whatever  he  was,  he  staid. 

We  said  musician — yes,  musician.  Well  knowing  the  power  of 
imagination  over  the  human  mind  in  all  epidemics,  even  in  those  not 
so  virulent  as  a  cholera  epidemic,  Dr.  Wood  took  his  medicine  case 
in  one  hand  and  his  fiddle  in  the  other.  He  was  an  excellent  per- 
former then.  After  seeing  and  prescribing  for  all  of  his  patients  he 
would  play  them  a  lively  tune — something  that  would  make  self 
quit  preying  upon  self,  something  that  would  make  the  heart  beat 
faster,  and  the  icy  circulation  strive  just  one  more  time  to  get  at  all 
the  extremities. 

What  a  spectacle!  Here  was  death,  intrenched  in  the  reeking 
atmosphere  of  a  steerageway,  defied  with  the  rollicking  tunes  of  a 
master  fiddler.  It  was  Mirabeau's  death  song  materialized  on  a 
western  river:  "Crown  me  with  flowers,  intoxicate  me  with  per- 
fumes and  let  me  die  to  the  sounds  of  delicious  music." 

But  they  did  not  die,  many  of  them.  Considering  the  unfavor- 
able nature  of  the  surroundings  and  the  malignant  type  of  the 
disease,  many  were  saved.  And  what  was  Dr.  Wood's  reward? 
The  prayers  and  the  blessings  of  these  poor  survivors  which  fol- 
lowed him  for  years  after  in  the  shape  of  letters  and  little  tokens  in 
tbe  way  of  remembrance  and  affection.  Through  rigid  quarantine 
and  perpetual  fumigation  the  cholera  was  kept  from  the  cabin  pas- 
sengers.* And  it  was  well.  Dr.  Wood's  mission  was  in  the  steerage 
and  there  he  meant  to  stay  even  though  he  were  stricken  down  in 
mid-battle.  God,  however,  spared  him  to  finish  his  life,  and  to 
build  some  priceless  monuments  of  science  and  skill  to  adorn  his 
noble  profession. 

Dr.  Wood,  in  its  very  essence  and  purity,  was  a  medical  philos- 
opher. He  went  up  from  cause  to  effect  with  the  rapid  stride  of  the 
born  commander.  Said  Bichat,  that  wonderful  Frenchman,  who 
died  too  young  for  the  sake  of  humanity:  "The  discovery  of  the 
cause  is  the  discovery  of  the  remedy."  To  this  end  Dr.  Wood 
marched  with  a  set  will  that  never  relaxed  or  yielded.  His  glance 
was  instantaneous.  He  seemed  to  fathom  disease  through  the  appli- 
cation of  a  sixth  sense  which  might  well  be  named  intuition.  His 
diagnosis  was  as  unerring  as  the  tide's  ebb  and  flow.  His  resources 
in  any  desperate  crisis  were  as  manifold  as  they  were  instantly 
evoked.  No  extremity,  however  desperate,  ever  confused  his 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  123 

searching  glance  or  ruffled  the  calm  serenity  of  the  great  physician. 
Hence,  when  many  of  his  brother  practitioners,  had  patients  sup- 
posed to  be  nearing  the  inevitable  hour,  Dr.  Wood  was  most  gener- 
ally called  in  for  consultation.  So  frequently  was  this  done  that 
the  practice  passed  into  a  proverb.  A  lady  one  day  made  it  vivid 
by  an  epigram.  Awakening  from  a  deep  sleep  she  saw  Dr.  Wood 
standing  by  her  bedside,  and  exclaimed:  "  What,  then,  is  it  so  bad 
as  this?  I  see  that  Dr.  Wood  is  here." 

So  remarkable  had  his  fame  become  for  snatching  people  f ]  om 
the  very  jaws  of  death,  and  so  widely  known  had  this  reputaiion 
been  made,  both  in  medicine  and  surgery,  that  he  was  sent  for  at 
various  times  to  New  York,  Baltimore,  Washington  City,  upon  sev- 
eral occasions  to  Philadelphia,  often  to  St.  Louis,  and  to  as  many  as 
two  hundred  places  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  These  demands  were 
constantly  made  upon  him  until  he  gradually  withdrew  from  his 
more  arduous  labors  to  devote  more  time  to  his  own  personal  and 
devoted  friends. 

Dr.  Wood  had  a  face  like  the  face  of  that  famous  English  sur- 
geon, Sir  Astley  Cooper.  Genius  beamed  from  every  line  of  it — from 
every  form,  fashion,  contour  and  feature.  In  repose  it  was  some- 
times sad,  yet  always  august.  Butwheu  that  peculiar  smile  of  his 
broke  over  it,  then  it  shone  as  the  east  shines  when  low  down  on  its 
utter  most  verge  the  shadows  begin  to  lift  a  little  and  the  dawn  tostir 
therein,  peering  over  the  edge  and  waiting  to  bless  the  world.  It 
had  often  and  often  been  remarked  for  its  fascination  and  from  the 
way  it  made  his  face  transfigured.  Seen  in  the  sick  chamber,  it 
brought  hope,  faith,  help,  consolation.  Seen  in  social  life  it  attracted 
all  who  wanted  solace,  confidence  and  unrestrained  communion. 

And  now  it  will  never  more  be  seen  again  anywhere  this  side 
of  the  Wonderful  River.  He  had  lived  his  life  as  some  huge  old 
oak  which  the  wind  for  years  could  not  prevail  against,  the  light- 
nings shiver,  nor  the  storms  uproot.  But,  stricken  at  last  by  time, 
which  strikes  all  earthly  things  to  dust,  it  falls  a  forest  monarch, 
never  to  be  upreared  again  in  all  the  ages. 

So  fell  our  giant,  who  was  yet  full  of  all  gentleness,  and  ten- 
derness, and  charity,  and  good  deeds,  and  a  stainless  manhood,  and 
a  fame  that  will  endure  while  intellect  does  homage  to  intellect,  and 
genius  has  a  shrine  where  all  its  devotees  can  kneel  and  worship. 
A  life  so  grandly  and  so  unselfishly  lived  sinks  from  the  sight  of 
those  who  yet  remain  with  the  halo  of  noble  deeds  about  it,  and 
leaves  behind  the  example  of  its  own  magnanimous  dedication  to 
duty  and  to  humanity. 

But  beyond?    What  of  that?    Ah— 

t  "  Who  shall  murmur  or  misdoubt 

When  God's  great  sunshine  finds  us  out  ?  " 

WAR  QUAKER  FASHION. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  21,  1888.] 

The  telegraph  tells  us  that  the  Third  German  Army  Corps,  led 
by  the  Emperor,  was  repulsed  after  a  hot  battle  in  an  attack  upon 
Berlin,  which  was  defended  by  the  guards. 

How  many  were  killed  ?  None.  How  many  were  wounded  I 
None.  Then  it  was  a  Quaker  battle?  Not  absolutely  necessary — it 
was  only  a  part  of  the  autumn  rnanoeuvrers. 

By  the  way,  does  this  mimic  sort  of  warfare  amount  to  anything? 


124:  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

It  can  have  no  possible  feature  in  common  with  war  in  its  sure 
enough  form  and  fashion.  Sham  war  goes  by  certain  fixed  rules 
arranged  over  a  map  at  night  to  be  carried  out  in  the  morning.  This 
brigade  is  to  do  so  and  so,  as  will  this  division,  as  will  this  corps. 
The  attack  is  planned  as  would  be  a  pleasure  trip,  the  defense  also. 
Nothing  is  left  to  skill,  to  superior  generalship,  to  the  sudden  mass- 
ing of  strong  columns  upon  weak  ones,  to  the  swift  concentration  of 
a  more  powerful  artillery ;  while  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  nothing 
is  left  to  that  intangible  yet  all  powerful  thing  called  by  the  ancients 
fate  and  by  the  moderns  fortune.  Charles  V.  perfectly  understood 
it  when  the  great  Conde  baffled  him  at  Metz:  "I  am  too  old,"  he 
said.  "  Fortune  needs  to  be  wooed  by  younger  lovers." 

On  the  other  hand,  actual  war  calls  every  resource  of  the  com- 
mander into  instant  action,  and  demands  that  he  shall  be  capable  on 
the  moment  to  seize  upon  and  make  favorable  every  circumstance 
as  i  t  arises.  It  is  i mperati vely  necessary  that  the  army  which  attacks 
shall  be  governed  largely  by  the  movements  of  the  army  which 
resists.  A  plan  of  battle  is  all  well  enough,  but  it  must  be  a  plan 
that  will  stretch  for  leagues,  contract  for  leagues,  change  its 
entire  sum  and  substance  or  be  of  such  a  nature  as  to  be 
abandoned  altogether  when  it  is  no  longer  fit  to  be  relied  upon 
in  the  face  of  its  surroundings.  In  other  words,  it  is  one  thing 
to  plan  and^another  thing  to  execute.  Actual  war  gives  scope  to  all 
that  is  daring,  wary,  crafty,  impassive  and  omniscient  in  man; 
mimic  war  puts  him  on  an  easy-going  horse,  and  bids  him  ride  leis- 
urely down  a  certain  road  and  halt  at  a  certain  stopping  place  for 
the  night.  Actual  war  means  to  get  there  first  with  the  most  men, 
and  then  go  for  everything  in  sight;  mimic  war  means  that  if  so  and 
so  happens,  then  so  and  so  must  be  done.  Here  are  your  metes  and 
bounds.  Those  whom  you  have  to  encounter  have  also  their  metes 
and  bounds.  On  each  side  they  are  inexorable.  Do  what  you  are 
told  and  attend  to  your  own  business. 

Therefore  we  ask  again,  Do  these  mimic  mancEuvrers  ever 
amount  to  anything?  "I  nevermanceuvrer/'said  Grant.  "Wherever 
I  find  General  Lee  I  shall  attack  him."  All  of  which  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  grinding  to  powder  by  sheer  attrition.  "The  com- 
pany is  the  unit,"  said  Napoleon.  "It  is  my  captains  who  have 
won  all  my  victories.  Drill  for  me  your  companies  perfectly  and  I 
will  do  all  the  balance."  The  Roman  legions  gave  all  their  spare 
time  to  rigid  drill  and  discipline.  Marlborough  made  his  soldiers 
well  nigh  invincible  by  launching  them  against  the  enemy.  The 
suggestion  merely  of  a  mimic  manceuvrer  to  old  Frederick  the  Great 
would  have  brought  a  blow  from  his  walking  stick.  Wellington  in 
all  his  life  never  perhaps  dreamed  of  one.  Hannibal  rested  when  he 
did  not  fight.  Alexander  feasted  when  he  was  not  marching. 

Who  knows,  however,  but  what  the  times  have  changed  greatly? 
It  may  be  that  the  German  Emperor  knows  his  business  much  better 
than  any  one  else  can  in  the  American  republic,  whose  standing  army 
could  be  comfortably  camped  in  a  twenty-acre  field.  Any  way  Ber- 
lin is  safe,  and  that  is  something  to  be  thankful  for. 

WILL-O'-THE  WISP. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  22, 1888.] 

There  has  been  published  for  some  time,  in  newspapers  as  well 
as  in  magazines,  a  wonderful  story  of  a  hidden  treasure,  said  to  have 
been  buried  by  an  Indian  when  Pizarro  conquered  Peru.  Accord- 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  125 

ing  to  reports,  which  break  forth  every  now  and  then  as  though  the 
suoject  were  a  new  one,  many  a  hunt  has  been  made  for  it  and  many 
a  hunter  has  given  up  the  search,  baffled  and  disappointed. 

And  no  wonder,  if  they  take  the  following  as  a  lamp  for  their 
feet  and  a  light  for  their  eyes.  It  is  from  the  American  Magazine, 
and  it  reads: 

"Everyone  who  has  read  Prescott's  fascinating  volumes  knows 
what  followed.  "With  the  aid  of  the  Spaniards,  Atahualpa conquered 
his  brother.  When  he  lay  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  guests  he 
had  treated  so  hospitably,  he  offered  to  fill  his  prison  with  gold  if 
they  would  release  him.  They  agreed,  and  his  willing  subjects 
brought  the  treasure,  but  the  greedy  Spaniards  demanded  n.ore. 
Runners  were  hurried  all  over  the  country,  and  the  simple,  unselfish 
people  surrendered  all  their  wealth  to  save  their  king.  But  Pizarro 
became  tired  of  waiting  for  the  treasure,  and  the  men  in  charge  <  f  it, 
upon  hearing  the  news  that  Atahualpa  had  been  strangled,  buried 
the  gold  and  silver  in  the  L'anganati,  where  the  Spaniardshavc  been 
searching  for  it  ever  since." 

"Everybody  who  has  read  Prescott's  fascinating  volumes 
knows  "  no  such  thing.  Atahualpa  never  saw  a  Spaniard,  and 
most  probably  never  heard  of  one,  until  seven  months,  and  most 
likely  two  years,  after  he  had  whipped  his  brother  in  two  pitched 
battles,  seized  upon  his  capital  and  dispossessed  him  of  his  territory. 
It  was  the  old  story  of  a  divided  inheritance.  Huayna  Capac,  by 
far  the  greatest  Inca  of  all  of  a  long  line  of  Peruvian  Incas,  divided 
his  kingdom,  at  his  death,  between  his  two  sons,  Huascar  and  Ata- 
hualpa. The  first  was  mild,  generous,  lovable,  merciiul  and  just  ; 
the  last  was  fierce,  intractable  and  savage.  He  rose  upon  Huascar, 
conquered  him,  and  dethroned  him.  Then  came  Pizarro,  who 
lured  Atahualpa  into  the  city  of  Caxamalca.  He  came  accompa- 
nied by  an  armed  following  of  some  six  thousand.  These  were 
butchered  to  a  man  and  the  person  of  the  Inca  himself  seized  upon 
and  held  in  close  confinement.  The  declaration  that  he  offered 
Pizarro  as  a  ransom  his  prison  full  of  gold  is  simply  laughable.  It 
was  only  one  apartment  which  Atahualpa  promised  to  fill,  and  this 
was  seventeen  feet  broad  by  twenty-two  feet  long.  The  height  was 
indicated  by  a  line  drawn  nine  feet  from  the  floor.  Nothing  was  to 
be  melted  down.  The  gold  was  to  retain  the  original  form  of  the 
articles  into  which  it  Had  first  been  manufactured. 

The  line  had  not  been  anywhere  even  nearly  reached — and  it  is 
quite  probable  that  it  could  never  have  been  reached — when  the 
Spanish  soldiers  began  to  clamor  furiously  for  a  division.  Pizarro 
either  could  not  or  would  not  gainsay  them.  He.ordered  some  very- 
skillful  goldsmith  to  reduce  everything  to  ingots,  or  bars  of  a  uni- 
form standard,  which  were  afterward  nicely  weighed  under  the 
superintenderce  of  the  royal  inpr-ectors.  The  total  amount  of  gold 
was  found  to  be  about  $15,500,000  of  our  money.  One  fifth  of  this 
\va.s  sent  to  the  then  emperor  of  Spain,  Charles  V.,  which  he  duly 
received  and  duly  made  returns  for  in  the  shape  of  very  valuable 
land  grants  and  most  extraordinary  privileges  bestowed  upon  the 
conquerors.  The  balanceof  this  gigantic  amount  of  ransom  money 
was  next  distributed,  at  a  ratio  fully  agreed  upon,  among  Pizarro's 
officers  and  men.  Ts^t  a  word  is  said  anywhere  about  a  single  gold 
bar  being  buried  by  Indian  or  what  rot.  The  wordL'langanali  is 
never  written  on  a  single  page  of  Pre.ccott's  history  which  deals 
with  this  dark,  this  thrilling,  this  almost  miraculous  episode  in 
Peruvian  conquest,  the  conquest  itself  being  the  greatest  miracle  of 
them  all. 


126  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

The  final  manner  of  the  killing  of  Atahualpa  has  never  been 
satisfactorily  explained.  Whether  he  was  strangled,  garroted,  or 
burnt,  is  yet  an  open  question  for  debate.  He  certainly  lost  his  life. 
He  had  murdered  his  own  brother,  his  rightful  sovereign,  and  to  the 
third  generation  he  had  destroyed  every  relation  who  was  supposed 
to  contain  a  drop  of  the  blood  of  the  mighty  Inca,  Huayna  Capac. 
The  surroundings  of  Pizarro  were  desperate.  At  the  best  he  never 
had  over  700  Spanish  soldiers  all  told,  and  he  was  in  the  midst  of  a 
hostile  population  of  seven  or  eight  millions.  It  seems  incredible, 
but  it  is  true.  Worse  circumstanced,  and  more  fearfully  beset,  Lis 
kinsman  and  townsman,  Cortez,  did  the  same  with  Gautemozin,  the 
last  Aztec  monarch  of  Mexico. 

The  silly  paragraph  from  the  magazine  above  quoted  would 
never  have  been  referred  to  at  all  had  it  not  been  accompanied  by  tne 
declaration  that  a  company  in  New  York  was  being  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  hunting  for  the  buried  treasures  of  Atahualpa  which,  if 
buried  at  all,  were  buried  nearly  350  years  ago.  Should  it  be  formed 
and  should  any  of  its  prospectors  go  pestering  about  ihe  site  of  the 
ancient  Caxamalca,  the  Peruvians  themselves  would  laugh  them  out 
of  South  America. 

By  the  way,  this  buried  treasure  business  is  no  new  will-o'-the- 
wisp — no  new  Jack-with-his-lautern.  They  are  still  hunting  for 
the  gold  the  pirate  Kidd  hid  somewhere  out  of  sight.  Acre  after 
acre  bas  been  dug  over  or  plowed  over  to  find  the  treasures  of  La- 
fitte,  although  Lafitte  had  been  amnestied  long  before  he  died  peace- 
fully in  his  bed,  and  had  no  need  to  bury  any  treasures.  There  are 
three  islands  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  off  the  Mexican  port  of  Tepic, 
called  "  The  Three  Marys,"  which  have  been  regularly  explored  for 
half  a  century  by  hunters  hunting  for  the  gold  that  that  cruel  buc- 
caneer Morgan  must  surely  have  buried  somewhere  on  one  of  the 
three,  according  to  tradition.  But  after  all,  perhaps,  it  is  just  as 
well  as  not  to  let  these  sort  of  cranks  complacently  alone.  They 
are  perfectly  harmless  and  their  credulity  is  one  of  the  few  imbe- 
cile phases  of  human  nature  which  amuses  the  multitude. 

WOLESLEY  ON  M'CLELLAN  AND  LEE. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  September  30, 1838.] 

"And  lastly,  let  me  glance  at  General  Lee.  Lee's  strategy  when 
he  fought  in  defense  of  the  Southern  capital,  and  threatened  and 
finally  struck  at  that  of  the  United  States,  marks  him  as  one  of  the 
greatest  captains  of  this  or  any  other  age.  No  man  has  ever  fought 
an  uphill  and  a  losing  game  with  greater  firmness,  or  ever  displayed 
a  higher  order  of  true  military  genius  than  he  did  when  i  n  command  of 
the  Confederate  Army.  The  knowledge  of  his  profession  displayed 
by  General  McClellan  was  considerable,  and  his  strategic  concep- 
tions were  admirable,  but  he  lacked  one  attribute  of  a  general, 
without  which  no  man  can  ever  succeed  in  war — he  was  never  able 
to  estimate  with  any  accuracy  the  numbers  opposed  to  him.  It  was 
the  presence  in  Lee  of  that  intuitive  genius  for  war  which  McClellan 
lacked,  which  again  and  again  gave  him  victory,  even  when  he  was 
altogether  outmatched  in  numbers." — Lord  Wolesley  in  Fortnightly 
Review. 

Why  single  out  McClellan  for  these  kind  of  comparisons? 
Why  make  him  alone,  of  all  the  Federal  commanders,  the  one  sole 
standard  by  which  shall  be  tried  the  military, successes  and  abilities 
of  Lee?  Lord  Wolseley  has  not  alone  done  this,  although  he  has 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  127 

done  it  often;  but  the  Count  of  Paris,  also,  Colonel Chesney,  Colonel 
Freemantle,  Count  Von  Borcke  and  a  multitude  of  American  writers 
good,  bad  and  indiflerent.  Why  not  occasionally  range  up  along- 
side of  him  McDowell  or  Burnside  or  Hooker  or  Hal  leek  or  Pope 
or  Mead  or  Grant?  He  fought  all  of  these  at  some  one  time  or 
another,  and  surely  out  of  the  vast  array  of  writers  that  could  be 
easily  enumerated  others  besides  McClellan  might  be  contrasted 
with  the  great  Virginian. 

We  have  an  abiding  faith  in  the  military  genius  of  Lord  Wol- 
seley. It  is  fashionable,  we  know,  to  dismiss  him  with  a  sneer,  and 
ridicule  his  capacity  because  he  has  only  fought  Zulus,  negroes  and 
Arabs.  This  is  not  all  of ^  the  truth.  ^  He  has  fought  Russians  as 
well,  the  stubbornest  race  in  all  the  history  of  war  except  the  Eng- 
lish, and  a  race  that  stands  killing  with  something  of  the  fatalism 
of  tue  Turk,  and  much  of  the  stoicism  of  the  North  American 
Indian. 

General  Jo  Shelby  once  called  upon  Marshal  Bazaine — that  time 
he  commanded  the  French  in  Mexico — on  business  for  some  of  his 
old  soldiers.  They  wanted  to  enlist  under  Bazaine,  and  Shelby 
went  directly  to  the  Marshal  in  their  behalf.  Business  done,  wine 
was  brought.  Over  this  the  two  men  lingered  longer  than  either 
thought.  One  episode  of  the  conversation  impressed  Shelby  much. 
Said  Bazaiue,  in  substance:  "I  should  like  more  than  you  may 
imagine  to  meet  this  Grant  of  yours  on  the  battlefield.  He  should 
pick  fifty  thousand  Americans  and  I  fifty  thousand  Frenchmen." 
Shelby  answered  with  a  smile,  yet  boldly:  "  In  that  event,  Marshal, 
I  fear  much  that  you  would  be  worsted." 

Something  of  a  desire  similar  to  Bazaine's  must  be  felt  by  a  great 
many  to  see  Lord  Wolseley  in  command  of  a  British  army  that  was 
to  play  its  part  upon  some  great  European  battlefield.  It  is  then 
that  we  firmly  believe  he  would  prove  himself  to  be  another  Marl- 
borough.  We  do  not  say  Wellington  because  Wellington  was  a 
mere  episode  in  the  great  French  drama  then  drawing  rapidly  toward 
its  close.  He  entered  by  a  back  door  into  Spain  when  Napoleon  was 
dreaming  of  Moscow.  He  found  a  nation  in  arms  to  meet  him,  and 
greet  him,  and  help  him  against  the  invader.  And  of  what  a  race 
of  people  was  this  nation  composed!  The  Romans,  world  conquer- 
ors, never  conquered  Spain.  Two  of  the  Scipios  perished  there. 
Julius  CaBsar  left  the  old  Iberians  unsubdued  in  their  mountains. 
Hannibal  barely  escaped  destruction  there.  The  Saracens  swept 
over  the  land  like  a  tempest,  and  as  suddenly  subsided.  The^Moors 
staid  longer,  but  were  finally  exterminated.  And  it  was  with  the 
descendants  of  this  invincible  Spanish  race  that  Napoleon  was  sup- 
posed to  be  fighting— lazily,  languidly,and  desultorily^-when  Well- 
ington came.  True,  the  demigod  went  in  person  once  and  ran  every- 
thing into  the  ocean,  British  and  all,  but  his  heart  was  beyond  the 
Niemen.  He  was  pluming  his  eagles  for  that  swoop  upon  Russia 
which  was  rewarded  with  St.  Helena.  We  say  Marlborough,  there- 
fore, and  not  Wellington.  One  thing  Lord  Wolseley  appears  never 
to  have  understood — nor  any  of  the  balance  of  the  foreign  authors  for 
that  matter— that  McClellan  f  ousrht  Lee  in  the  splendid  youth,  vigor 
and  physical  development  of  theSouthern  Confederacy.  Every  sol- 
dier following  this  flag  was  a  volunteer.  The  pride  of  emulation 
between  the  States  begot  a  spirit  of  heroic  endeavor  that  in  its  intens- 
ity was  truly  Homeric.  Men  rushed  to  battle  as  to  a  marriage  feast. 
They  clamored  for  it,  they  adorned  themselves  for  it,  they  suffered 
and  endured  all  things  joyously  for  it,  and,  when  once  being  in,  so 
bore  themselves  that  the  world  wondered  how  regiments  of  almost 


128  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

boys  as  it  were  could  endure  to  be  decimated,  and  yet  close  up, 
shout,  and  go  forward. 

To  meet  this  army  of  Northern  Virginia,  McClellan  organized  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  That  army  saved  the  Union.  There  is  not 
a  Federal  general  living  or  dead  who  could  have  faced  Lee  when  he 
faced  him  and  held  his  own  as  he  held  it ;  bedeviled  as  he  was  by  the 
idiots  at  Washington  ;  hated  and  betrayed  by  Stanton  ;  thwarted  by 
an  insane  fear  forever  rampant  of  the  capital  being  in  danger;  his 
most  completely  prepared  and  cherished  movements  constantly  inter- 
fered with ;  bewildered  by  a  mass  of  chaotic  and  driveling  orders 
sufficient  to  swamp  a  man-of-war ;  caressed  to-day  and  banished 
to-morrow — to  stand  up  against  all  these  things,  we  say,  and  a  multi- 
tude more  just  as  hurtful,  weakening  and  tormenting — and  fight  Lee 
week  after  week,  retreating,  it  may  be,  but  forever  fighting ,  and 
losing  nothing  but  the  ground  which  he  had  first  taken  himself,  is 
to  prove  McClellan  the  real  hero  and  commander  on  the  side  of  the 
Federals. 

And  yet  Grant  gets  all  the  glory.  For  a  time — yes.  During 
this  generation  and  another? — perhaps.  The  history,  however,  of 
these  events  has  yet  all  to  be  written,  Eulogy  is  not  history,  nor 
laudation,  nor  special  pleas,  nor  messes  of  political  pottage,  nor 
favoritism,  spread-eagleism  and  Badeauism.  History  is  a  surgeon. 
It  goes  at  a  thing  knife  in  hand.  It  lays  bare  veins,  nerves,  arteries, 
bones,  muscles,  all  the  organs,  the  whole  physical  structure  of  man. 
Its  nomenclature  is  inexorable.  It  covers  up  nothing,  suppresses 
nothing,  has  no  shame,  burns  no  incense,  worships  no  idols.  It  is 
the  angel  by  the  gate  with  truth's  flaming  sword  in  its  hand.  Never 
more  into  the  garden  can  there  come  again  its  prostitutes,  its 
revelers  and  its  defilers. 

When  Grant  came  he  had  the  country  by  the  tail.  He  had  only 
to  grunt  and  the  earth  shook  with  the  tread  of  reinforcements. 
He  had  only  to  crook  one  finger  and  Stanton  fell  upon  his  knees. 
He  had  only  to  sulk  one  day  in  his  tent  and  there  was  crape  on  the 
doors  of  the  executive  mansion.  At  the  rate  of  six  to  one  he  ground 
Lee  to  powder.  That  proportion  of  sheep  could  have  overcome  a 
lion.  But  for  the  grinding,  as  we  have  said,  Grant  got  all  the  glory. 
So  be  it.  The  truth,  the  purity,  the  integrity  and  the  priceless  abil- 
ity of  such  a  man  as  McClellan  are  wonderfully  out  of  place  in  a 
republic.  Republics  honor  and  adore  only  those  things  which  hap- 
pen to  be  in  at  the  death. 


CLEVELAND  RETIRES  TO  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  18, 1889.] 

Precisely  two  weeks  before  the  completion  of  his  fifty -second 
birthday  President  Cleveland  will  retire  from  the  chief  magistracy 
of  the  Nation.  He  is  in  the  full  prime  of  his  manhood;  in  the  full 
perfection  of  his  life  and  strength.  He  was  the  youngest,  save  one, 
of  all  the  presidents,  when  inaugurated,  General  Grant  beini}-  his 
junior  by  but  a  single  year.  He  is  now  several  years  younger  than 
a  majority  of  the  presidents  were  when  elected.  The  future  ought 
to  be,  and  no  doubt  is,  very  fair  before  him.  He  can  with  much 
calmness  and  self -possession  look  forward  to  a  long  period  of  activ- 
ity and  usefulness  in  his  profession,  and  it  is  with  no  little  pride  and 
satisfaction  that  his  countrymen  may  regard  his  decision  to  return 
again  to  business.  It  settles  for  the  time,  and  perhaps  for  all  time, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  ^09 

the  question  of  pensioning  the  ex-presidents.      It  is  a  practical  illus- 
tration, in  fact,  of  Jeffersonian  Democracy. 

In  more  ways  than  one  President  Cleveland  has  shown  himself 
to  be  a  remarkable  man.  When  he  was  elected  to  his  present  high 
office  the  Democratic  party  had  been  out  of  power  for  twenty-three 
years.  Everywhere  the  declaration  was  made  that  the  conservative 
forces  of  the  country  not  only  distrusted  it  but  were  afraid  of  it. 
Many  believed  in  such  talk,  however  much  it  was  full  of  utter  ab- 
surdity, and  folded  their  arms  in  mute  acceptance  of  an  assertion 
which  was  composed  equally  of  boast,  greed  and  invidious  lying. 
It  remained  for  Cleveland  to  give  all  such  specious  claims  their 
swift  quietus,  and  he  goes  out  of  office  as  much  respected  and 
depended  upon  as  any  of  his  predecessors,  no  matter  his  name  or  at 
what  period  in  the  history  of  the  republic  he  was  president. 

He  came  at  a  time  when  it  was  needful  that  a  halt  should  be 
called.  Monopoly — born  of  the  Civil  War  and  strengthened  and 
fenced  about  by  every  sort  of  congressional  enactment  which  could 
render  it  less  and  less  amenable  to  assault — was  in  complete  posses- 
sion of  the  nation.  A  tariff — higher  in  its  rates  of  protection  and 
heavier  in  the  weight  of  its  burdens  than  any  tariff  the  people  had 
ever  before  known  or  thought  possible — was  simply  devouring  agri- 
culture and  all  the  productions  of  agriculture.  Public  extravagance 
had  grown  to  be  a  public  curse.  It  pervaded  every  branch  of  the 
cmf  service,  and  kept  the  national  treasury,  for  at  least  nine  months 
in  the  year,  swept  as  clean  and  as  bare  as  a  threshing  floor.  It  was 
the  era  of  jobs,  of  rings,  of  all  sorts  of  \margins  for  enterprising 
boodlers,  for  irresponsible  legislators,  and  for  a  partisan  army  of 
foragers  who  looked  upon  the  General  Government  in  the  light  of  a 
great  protector,  who  owed  every  one  of  them  a  living  and  a  fat  liv- 
ing at  that.  The  only  thing,  therefore,  to  be  considered  was  best 
how  to  get  at  it,  how  to  make  it  as  bountiful  as  possible  and  how 
to  squeeze  out  of  the  Federal  funds  as  many  dollars  as  could 
possibly  be  laid  hands  upon  or  in  some  manner  circumvented. 
Centralization  was  the  rule,  while  to  legislate  the  least  in  favor  of 
the  people  was  looked  upon  as  time  thrown  away  and  energies 
wasted. 

The  question  then  was  not  so  much  as  to  whether  a  Democrat 
could  or  could  not  be  elected  president,  but  entirely  as  to  the  kind 
of  a  Democrat.  No  milk  sop,  no  easy-going  politician  content  to  let 
things  as  they  were  abide  as  they  were;  no  ambitious  aspirant  who 
after  he  had  once  been  chosen  chief  magistrate  would  make  one 
entire  administration  so  shape  itself  as  to  secure  another;  no  trim- 
mer, time-server,  or  a  man  afraid  of  responsibility.  A  sort  of  halt- 
ing, hesitating,  half  smothered  cry  came  up  from  the  masses,  "Give 
us  iron!"  and  they  got  iron. 

If  the  country  had  been  raked  fore  and  aft  a  sterner  man  than 
Cleveland  could  not  have  been  found,  nor  one  more  stubborn,  nor 
one  more  determined  to  do  his  duty  despite  all  personal  conse- 
quences. He  instantly  called  a  halt.  He  attacked  monopoly  in 
its  very  den,  surrounded  by  the  bones  of  its  myriads  of  victims. 
He  struck  the  shield  of  the"high  protective  tariff  with  the  iron  point 
of  his  lance,  which  meant  a  combat  to  the  death,  and  it  had  to 
muster  its  last  man  and  its  last  dollar  just  to  hold  him^at  bay.  He 
did  not  seek  to  know  what  enemies  he  was  causing  to  rise  up  against 
him.  He  believed  that  he  was  right  and  he  pressed  forward^o  the 
attainment  of  his  objects  with  whip  and  spur  His  own,  simple, 
high-spirited  and  patriotic  course  felled  sectionalism  to  the  earth  at 
a  single  blow.  If  he  did  not  kill,  he  certainly  put  it  beyond  all 


130  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

signs  of  life  and  motion  during  the  time,  at  least,  of  his  own  admin- 
istration. He  cut  down  expenses;  saved  millions  to  the  taxpayers, 
economized  in  a  multitude  of  practical  ways;  secured  for  actual 
settlement  an  area  of  squandered  territory  as  large  as  all  of  New 
England;  proved  to  the  nation  that  the  Democratic  party  was  the 
best  party  after  all  to  rule  over  it — best  for  its  peace,  progress  and 
development — and  that  it  could  never  have  or  enjoy  the  blessings  of 
perfect  local  self-government  until  this  party  was  permitted  to  hold 
and  dispense  power  for  not  less  than  the  lifetime  of  a  single  gen- 
eration. 

That  he  was  beaten  for  re-election  proves  nothing.  He  accom- 
plished splendidly  the  objects  of  his  mission.  He  gave  the  people 
time  to  stop  awhile,  to  think  and  to  look  well  about  them.  Time 
will  do  the  balance.  He  could  have  won  easily  the  second  time  if 
he  had  held  his  peace.  Most  men  would  have  done  so,  but  true  to 
his  honest  convictions,  both  of  head  and  heart,  Cleveland  cried  out 
against  the  evils  and  the  times,  and  bade  his  party  do  a  giant's  battle 
against  them.  And  defeat  or  no  defeat,  the  Democratic  party 
to-day  is  more  powerful  than  ever. 

WASHINGTON'S  BIRTHDAY. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  February  25, 1889.] 

In  more  senses  than  one  George  Washington  was  the  reai  father 
of  his  country.  His  fame  abides  with  the  people  as  firmly  as  it  did 
the  day  of  Yorktown  or  Saratoga,  and  his  name  is  just  as  much 
dwelt  upon  and  revered  as  when  he  delivered  his  farewell 
address.  Modern  history  makes  mention  of  no  actor  in  great  and 
stirring  events — even  in  events  so  momentous  as-  the  founding  of  a 
nation — who  held  the  love  and  veneration  of  his  countrymen  so  long 
and  so  sincerely. 

In  referring  to  the  Seven  Years'  War,  begun  by  Frederick  the 
Great,  Voltaire  said :  "Such  was  the  complication  of  political  inter- 
ests that  a  canton  shot  fired  in  America  could  give  the  signal  that 
would  set  Europe  in  a  blaze."  Not  quite.  It  was  not  a  cannon  shot, 
but  a  volley  from  the  hunting  pieces  of  a  few  backwoodsmen,  com- 
manded by  a  Virginian  youth,  George  Washington. 

To  us  of  this  day  the  result  of  the  American  part  of  the  war 
seems  a  foregone  conclusion.  It  was  far  from  being  so;  and  very  far 
from  being  so  regarded  by  our  forefathers.  The  numerical  superi- 
ority of  the  British  colonies  was  offset  by  organic  weaknesses  fatal 
to  vigorous  and  united  action.  Nor  at  the  outset  did  they^or  the 
mother  country  aim  at  conquering  Canada,  but  only  at  pushing  back 
her  boundaries.  The  possession  of  Canada  was  a  question  of  diplo- 
macy as  well  as  of  war.  If  England  conquered  her  she  might  restore 
her,  as  she  had  lately  restored  Cape  Breton.  She  had,  or  ought 
to  have  had  a  vital  interest  in  keeping  France  alive  on  the  Amer- 
ican continent.  More  than  one  clear  eye  saw  at  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  that  the  subjection  of  Canada  would  lead  to  a  revolt  of 
these  British  colonies  in  question.  So  long  as  an  active  and  enter- 
prising enemy  threatened  their  border  they  could  not  break  with  the 
mother  country,  because  they  needed  her  help.  And  if  the  arms  of 
France  had  prospered  in  the  other  hemisphere,  if  she  had  gained 
in  Europe  or  Asia  territories  with  which  to  buy  back  what  she 
had  lost  in  America,  Canada,  in  all  probability,  would  have  passed 
again  into  her  hands. 

As  has  been  ably  and  lengthily  presented  and  discussed  by  a 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  131 

number  of  French,  English  and  American  historians,  the  most 
momentous  and  far-reaching  question  ever  brought  to  issue  on  this 
contineut  was :  Shall  France  remain  here  or  shall  she  not  ?  If,  by 
diplomacy  or  war  she  had  preserved  but  the  half,  or  less  than  the 
half  of  her  American  possessions,  then  a  barrier  would  have  been 
set  to  the  spread  of  the  English  speaking  races  ;  there  would  have 
been  no  Revolutionary  War,  and,  for  a  long  time,  at  least,  no  inde- 
pendence. It  was  not  a  question  of  scanty  population  strung  along 
the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence;  it  was — or  under  a  government  of 
any  worth  it  would  have  been — a  question  of  the  armies  and  generals 
of  France.  America  owes  much  to  the  imbecility  of  Louis  XV., and 
to  the  ambitious  vanity  and  personal  dislikes  of  his  mistress,  the 
Pompadour, 

Be  these  speculations  and  prognostications,  however,  as  they 
may,  when  the  colonies  finally  did  revolt  it  took  the  last  man  and 
the  last  dollar  just  barely  to  win  the  fight ;  nor  would  they  in  all 
probability  had  it  not  been  for  French  gold,  soldiers  and  ships.  The 
further  probability  is  also  great  that  with  their  own  resources  and 
those  joined  to  them  from  the  outside 'the  colonies  would  have  been 
worsted  in  the  Revolutionary  War  had  not  such  a  man  as  George 
Washington  been  on  hand  to  command  their  armies,  and  to  be  at 
once  general,  lawgiver,  statesman,  purveyor,  breakwater,  ark  of 
refuge,  and  a  leader  of  uncommon  intellectual  resource  and  iron 
strength  and  fortitude  of  character. 

In  the  sense  of  a  Caesar,  a  Hannibal,  an  Alexander,  or  a  Napo- 
leon, it  is  certain  that  Washington  was  not  gifted  with  any  such 

"  military  abilities  as  made  these  great  conquerors  world-renowned, 
but  he  had  others  which,  for  his  times  and  circum- 
stances, were  just  as  valuable.  He  had  a  patience  which  nothing 
could  ever  ruffle,  baffle,  or  make  weary.  His  patriotism  was  so 
high  and  exalted  as  to  mount  almost  to  the  altitude  of  religious  fer 
vor.  His  great  dignity  of  person  and  character  caused  his  soldiers 
to  look  upon  him  with  awe,  and  to  believe  that  where  he  lead  it 
could  only  be  glory  to  follow.  In  this  but  in  this  alone  was  he  the 
counterpart  of  Wallenstein .  He  lost  battles  but  he  won  campaigns. 

.  He  was  forced  many  times  to  retreat,  but  he  was  never  routed.  In 
this  but  in  this  alone  was  he  the  counterpart  of  Frederick  the  Great. 
His  moral  courage  was  equal  to  his  physical,  the  first  making  him 
impervious  to  all  fear  of  taking  responsibility,  and  the  last  giving 
him  conspicuous  valor  in  the  face  of  the  most  desperate  perils  and 
surroundings  of  war.  His  tenacity  and  resolution  of  purpose  wassuch 
that  these  obstacles  which  to  others  appeared  insurmountable,  were 
to  him  but  mere  stepping-stones  whereby  he  could  mount  higher  and 
higher  in  his  country's  service.  Whether  contemplating  the  immi- 
nent danger  the  nation  ran  in  the  almost  successful  accomplishment 
of  Arnold's  treason,  or  the  last  death  hours  of  what  seemed  going  to 
be  the.army's  life  amid  the  horrors  at  V-alley  Forge,  his  adjuration 
to  his  soldiers  was  Cromwellian  that  they  should  perpetually  put 
their  trust  in  God  and  keep  their  powder  dry.  Totally  devoid  of 
all  ambition  of  the  sort  which  most  generally  comes  to  either  the 
heroes  or  the  dominators  in  a  great  war,  Congress  relied  upon  him 
implicitly,  and  followed  his  suggestions  or  advice  as  if  his  superb 
disinterestedness  had  really  been  inspiration.  He  begged  only  for 
food,  clothing,  arms  and  ammunition  for  his  fighting  men. 

He  lived  as  they  lived,  fared  as  they  fared,  suffered  as  they  suf- 
fered; while  it  is  out  of  such  stuff  that  both  victors  and  martyrs  are 
made.  To  the  first  class  belong  Cortez,  the  two  Pizarros,  Garibaldi, 
Bolivar,  Robert  Bruce,  William  Tell,  Marshal  Ney  and  Gustavus 


132  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWAKDS. 

Adolphus.  To  the  last  class  belong  Harold,  Alfred  the  Great, 
Henry  of  Navarre,  Gordou,  Lawrence,  Havelockand  William  Wal- 
lace. Offered  the  garments  of  royalty,  he  pushed  them  aside,  not 
as  Caesar  did  the  crown  to  seize  it  later,  but  because  his  conscience 
was  high  and  holy,  and  because  he  had  fought  for  the  real  body  of 
liberty  iu  all  of  its  truth,  essence  and  substance,  and  not  for  its  sham, 
its  make-shift  and  its  counterfeit  presentiments. 

In  the  light  now  of  all  the  past — which  still  shines  so  vivid,  so 
instructive,  and  so  consoling — where  was  the  American  soldier  who 
could  have  taken  Washington's  place  and  created  the  American 
republic?  Greene,  Gates,  Charles  Lee,  Sullivan,  Putnam,  Hamil- 
ton, Burr,  Schuyler,  Arnold — admitting  him  true — or  any  of  the 
balance  of  his  more  prominent  subordinates?  As  well  contend  that 
all  of  his  marshals  combined  could  have  made  the  only  great 
Napoleon. 

There  is  not  a  patriotic  citizen  to-day  in  the  land  but  who 
should  take  upon  himself  a  labor  of  love  in  teaching  his  children 
the  grand  patriotism  and  the  spotless  integrity  of  this  superb  char- 
acter. He  knew  neither  envy,  detraction,  littleness  of  soul,  malice, 
jealousy,  fault-finding,  nor  invidious  favoritism.  It  was  a  character 
luminous  with  good  deeds  and  with  a  devotion  to  country  that 
some  few  in  history  may  have  equaled,  but  not  one  who  has  ever 
surpassed. 

TIME  MAKES  ALL  THINGS  EVEN. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  October  8, 1889.] 

The  order  had  gone  forth  to  destroy  Robespierre.  That  mon- 
ster who,  when  he  came  out  of  the  charnal  house  went  into  the 
tomb,  was  come  at  last  to  the  place  where  an  eye  had  to  be  rendered 
up  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.  Under  the  fire  of  those  mer- 
ciless accusations  and  arraignments  which  shriveled  him  up  as  some 
old  parchment  in  flames,  he  turned  green.  It  was  a  way  lie  had. 
Where  other  men,  so  bestead,  turned  pale,  this  one  turned  green. 
He  essayed  to  speak,  stammered,  halted  over  his  words,  was  not 
articulate,  and  finally  stood  still,  speechless,  yet  with  his  lips  a 
working.  Then  Lasource  thundered  out:  "The  blood  of  Danton 
chokes  thee,  Robespierre!" 

Through  Elaine  the  blood  of  Conkling  is  about  to  choke  Harri- 
son. From  the  grave  a  skeleton  hand  has  been  stretched  forth  to 
press  the  crimson  chalice  to  his  lips  and  force  its  drinking  to  the 
uttermost  drop.  The  letters  of  Dr.  Watson,  Conkling's  life-time 
physician,  and  George  C.  Gorham,  a  well-known  stalwart  repub- 
lican, have  both  been  published.  Each  but  voices  the  views  and 
investigations  of  a  multitude  of  Conkling  republicans  who  write  no 
letters  and  fall  into  the  hands  of  no  newspaper  reporters.  In  New 
York  the  voters  who  go  to  make  up  this  class  are  numerous,  well 
organized  and  powerful.  Call  that  dominating  influence  which  per- 
meates them  and  welds  them  together  as  a  steel  bar  a  sentiment,  if 
you  please,  but  beware  of  that  sentiment,  no  matter  whether  in  poli- 
tics or  what  not,  which  makes  brave  men  cry  out  and  puts  brave 
men  to  working.  Right  there  desperation  is  born,  and  from  that 
comes  any  act  or  deed  within  the  encompassment  of  human  intellect 
or  human  fixedness  of  purpose. 

Conkling  was  the  idol  of  his  following.  Such  was  his  person- 
ality or  individuality  that  those  who  served  under  his  banner  felt 
more  for  him  than  the  ordinary  respect  felt  by  the  private  for  hia 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  133 

chief — they  loved  him  even  as  David  loved  Jonathan.  His  hopes 
were  their  hopes,  his  aims  theirs,  his  ambition  theirs,  his  wounds 
made  their  bodies  bleed,  the  blows  rained  upon  his  devoted  head 
brought  them  to  their  knees,  and  when  in  the  last  onset  he  went 
down  before  the  blackest  and  basest  desertion  and  betrayal  ever 
known  to  American  politics,  they  went  down  with  him,  all  their 
bands  playing  and  all  their  flags  flying  in  the  air. 

Nor  was  it  any  wonder  that  such  a  man  had  lavished  upon  him 
so  much  of  constancy  and  devotion.  In  politics  he  was  never  a 
trimmer,  adapting  means  to  ends  and  lying,  not  alone  to  impose 
upon  mortal  credulity,  but  even  to  fool  God.  He  never  went  back 
from  the  front  leaving  his  best  to  die  there  because  he  was  a  coward. 
He  never  apologized.  The  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  the 
man  who  apologizes  before  he  fights  is  already  forsworn  and  pil- 
loried. He  never  stole  anything.  At  a  period  when  Grant  made 
legislators  out  of  looters,  governors  out  of  jackboots  and  judges  out 
of  demijohns,  Conkling  held  his  nose  with  white,  clean  hand  while 
the  vultures  of  reconstruction  were  devouring  the  South.  Roguery 
was  culminating.  Robeson  and  his  pals  had  stolen  a  navy.  One  of 
the  Shermans  had  been  driven  from  the  bench  for  bribery  and  pecu- 
lation. A  secretary  of  war,  caught  with  every  pocket  bulged  out 
with  boodle,  had  built  for  him  a  bridge  of  gold  to  retreat  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  penitentiary.  A  secretary  of  the  interior,  selling 
decisions  in  bales,  broke  down  under  the  weight  of  accumulated 
spoils,  and  confessed  to  one-half  in  order  to  retain  the  other.  Blaine 
stood  before  the  nation  branded  and  disgraced.  Another  speaker, 
Colfax,  had  been  djiven  ignominiously  from  public  life.  The 
Stir-route  revealments  had  made  the  masses  shudder.  Default- 
ers in  every  department  of  the  civil  service  piled  up  fortunes  and 
decamped.  Pillage  was  everywhere.  It  was  no  infamy  to  steal ,  and 
the  bigger  the  pile  the  swifter  the  condonement.  Would  the  storm 
ever  abate,  the  waters  ever  subside,  the  light  ever  flash?  forth  in  the 
east,  the  crest  of  Ararat  ever  rear  itself  up  through  the  infinite  black- 
ness of  darkness  to  greet  the  sunrise  and  the  morning? 

Through  it  all,  however,  Conkling  stood  as  some  great  pillar  of 
Parian  marble,  without  a  fleck,  a  flaw,  a  spot,  a  stain,  a  fracture,  or 
a  soilment.  No  whisper  even  marred  the  faultless  array  of  a  splen- 
did integrity.  Proud,  scorning  the  public  thieves  with  all  the 
scorn  of  "his  magnificent  nature,  heroic  in  the  management  of  his 
party,  stricken  to  the  heart  at  the  sight  of  so  much  fraud,  violence, 
and  venality,  and  yet  unwilling  to  overthrow  the  edifice  of  his  labor 
and  his  love  while  there  was  yet  left  a  single  chance  to  purify  it,  he 
made  one  more  rally,  his  final  one,  and  literally  saved  Garfield  from 
the  jaws  of  Democratic  devourment  in  New  York.  And  even  while 
he  saved  him  the  teeth  of  those  jaws  came  together  with  a  rasp  and 
grind  that  permitted  no  equilibrium  to  be  restored  to  Saint  Oleag- 
inous until  he  reached  the  mayflower  atmosphere  of  the  Western 
Reserve. 

And  his  reward?  Blaine  and  Gartield  formed  a  conspiracy  to 
politically  disgrace  this  chevalier  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche  of  a 
Conkling — who  would  neither  lie,  cheat,  take  bribes,  groan  in  the 
amen  corner,  wrestle  with  the  sisters  in  prayer,  nor  write  letters  to 
De  Golyer  nor  to  Mulligan — and,  well,  the  country  knows  the  bal- 
ance. 

History  repeats  itself,  and  what  Blaine  was  to  Garfield  so  he  is 
to  be  again  to  Harrison,  should  Harrison  be  elected.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  there  is  a  vengeful  yet  righteous  revolt  along  the  entire 
Conkling  line.  They  mean  that  the  blood  of  their  idol,  Conkling, 


134  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

shall  choke  Harrison,  because  in  choking  him  they  strangle  also  the 
hated  Elaine. 

JAMES  N.  BURNES. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  January  24-25, 1889. J 

The  sudden  and  fateful  blow  which  yesterday  struck  down  the 
Hon.  James  N.  Burnes,  of  the  Third  Congressional  District,  in  the 
midst  of  his  labors  and  his  usefulness  struck  also  the  unprotected 
bosom  of  Missouri. 

In  the  high  noon  of  a  splendid  intellect,  still  in  the  full  flow 
and  vigor  of  a  perfect  manhood,  proud  for  his  State,  ambitious  for 
his  State,  loving  his  State  as  though  it  were  a  prescient  thing  with 
whom  he  could  confer,  and  upon  whom  he  could  rely  for  counsel, 
guidance  and  inspiration,  he  stood  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Re- 
presentatives as  her  especial  champion,  guardian  and  friend. 

And  then  to  see  him  fall  as  he  did  with  all  of  his  war  harness 
on — fall  in  mid  career  with  his  work  yet  scarcely  begun,  and  the 
laurels  bound  tHick  about  his  brows  as  green  as  when  they  were 
gathered  in  the  early  morning  of  his  first  success,  and  as  his  most 
precious  victories— ah !  it  was  pitiful. 

One  had  to  know  James  N.  Burnes  long  and  well  to  sound  to  its 
uttermost  depths  the  virile  force  and  power  of  his  many-sided  char- 
acter. It  was  not  as  a  worldly  moral  or  physical  development  that 
one  could  know  it,  as  he  stood  out  boldly  in  the  open,  fighting  the 
battles  of  life  with  life's  own  weapons.  Then  and  there  he  took  such 
blows,  full  front,  as  time  and  situation  dealt  him,  giving  back  stroke 
for  stroke,  yielding  nothing  to  force,  or  blandishment,  or  seduction; 
but  hewing  a  path  straight  forward  to  the  goal,  with  head  erect  and 
soul  undaunted.  These  were  simply  the  periods  when  all  the  iron 
in  his  blood  went  to  make  his  muscles  tense,  his  will  adamant,  and 
the  courage  of  his  convictions  as  unswerving  as  the  tides  of  the  sea, 
which  ebb  and  flow,  and  yet  which  go  on  and  on  forever. 

No.  it  was  not  as  the  gladiator  that  one  should  have  studied  the 
man  Burnes — stalwart,  indomitable,  crushing  obstacles,  striding 
over  difficulties,  scaling  precipices  high  enough  seemingly  to  shut 
out  the  sunlight  from  his  most  cherished  hopes,  and  obscure  as 
with  the  very  blackness  of  darkness  his  most  ardent  aspirations. 
He  was  then  all  nerve,  energy,  unyielding  effort,  unflagging  zeal 
and  heroic  endeavor.  He  was  then  grappling  with  destiny  hand  to 
hand  and  yoking  fortune  to  his  chariot  wheels  to  minister  unto  his 
slightest  wants  and  obey  with  alacrity  his  imperious  bidding.  Of 
course  then  the  brow  was  corrugated,  the  light  of  battle  still  shone 
in  his  eyes,  the  dust  of  the  conflict  was  still  upon  his  garments,  the 
heat  of  the  strife  was  still  rioting  in  his  blood,  and,  until  the  vic- 
tory was  won,  and  from  the  stricken  field  he  had  gathered  the 
spoils  that  belonged  to  him  by  right  because  of  a  mighty  prowess 
and  an  almost  savage  resolution,  something  like  a  dark  hour 
would  seem  to  be  upon  this  soul.  He  brooded  then,  and  may  have 
been  a  little  bit  taciturn  and  a  little  bit  reserved. 

But  afterward  when  he  unbent  how  gentle,  and  fascinating,  and 
lovable  he  was.  His  face  would  then  shine  out  as  though  for  back- 
ground an  aureole  was  put  to  make  it  speaking  with  humanity,  and 
radiant  with  tenderness  and  affection. 

As  a  son  he  idolized  his  father  and  mother.  As  a  husband  he 
always  bore  himself  as  if  he  had  never  gone  beyond  the  blissful 
probation  of  the  ardent  lover.  As  a  parent  he  made  constant  com- 
panions of  bis  children,  entering  into  all  of  their  little  whims, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  135 

notions  and  adolescent  ambitions,  teaching  them  how  to  be  frank 
of  speech  and  generous  of  heart  and  nature.  As  a  neighbor  the 
latch-string  of  his  door  was  always  out,  and  none  in  distress  who 
ever  knocked  there  or  entered  there  went  away  empty-handed.  As 
a  citizen  his  enterprise  knew  no  limit,  his  liberality  was  without 
bounds,  his  resources  multiplied  themselves  by  the  amount  of  oppo- 
sition he  had  to  encounter,  while  his  faith  in  the  people  among 
whom  he  lived  and  wrought  never  wavered  a  moment.  Whatever 
was  apportioned  for  him  to  do  was  done  as  if  as  assistants  he  had 
both  omnipotence  and  omniscience.  As  a  public  man  he  pointed  to 
a  stainless  official  record,  and  boasted  with  pardonable .  pride  of 
duties  faithfully  and  conspicuously  done. 

He  was  yet  in  the  prime  of  life.  In  a  single  congressional  ses- 
sion he  took  immediate  rank  with  the  ablest  and  the  most  experienced 
of  his  colleagues  and  associates.  Samuel  J.  Randall  put  one  day  his 
hands  upon  his  head  to  give  him  asit  were  an  appreciative  blessing, 
and  when  he  arose  he  was  a  giant.  None  can  say  now  to  what  posi- 
tion he  might  not  have  aspired,  or  to  what  height  he  might  not  have 
soared  and  reached  if  God  had  not  called  him  hence  for  purposes 
unknown  to  poor  finite  minds  which  strive,  and  yearn,  and  reach 
out  from  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  bereavement  to  take  once 
more  the  hand  that  was  ever  open  to  succor  the  helpless  and  ever 
closed  to  defend  a  friend. 

And  now  he  has  gone  out  from  the  vision  of  all  who  knew  him 
and  loved  him  so.  Yes,  he  has  gone  the  dark  way  all  alone.  No 
comrade  at  his  side;  no  voices  of  the  olden  time  to  make  music  for  him; 
no  paths  that  were  once  so  familiar  to  him  to  walk  therein;  no  trees 
that  he  once  planted,  and  watered,  and  pruned  to  uprear  themselves 
by  the  roadside  to  make  him  shade;  no  tender  words  to  greet  him 
as  used  to  greet  him  in  the  old  days  when  returning  to  his  home;  no 
sweet  good-byes  to  bid  him  God  speed  as  of  old  at  the  parting. 
The  great  unknown  is  over,  and  around,  and  about  him, 

Is  it  light  there,  and  can  he  see  far  away  to  his  front  and  yet 
within  encompassment  the  Great  White  Throne,  and  the  jasper  gates 
and  the  golden  streets  of  the  New  Jerusalem  ? 

Surely,surely,  if  anybody  can  he  can;  if  anybody  ever  did  so  see 
he  has  already  seen,  for  did  he  not  die  like  a  soldier  on  duty?  Ah! 
yes,  he 

"Died  with  his  harness  on— the  broad-sword  leaping— 

The  wild  fight  surging  fast, 
Love  wounded,  with  each  stroke,  yet  keeping1, 

His  stout  front  to  the  last ! 
When  others  faint  of  heart,  sank  down  despairing, 

He  cheered  the  battle  on. 
To  his  last  life-drop  still  that  gay  smile  wearing, 

As  if  the  day  was  won. 
And  was  it  not  ?    Does  truest,  noblest  glory, 

In  shallow  triumph  lie  ? 
They  longest,  brightest  live,  in  song  and  story, 

Who  die  as  martyrs  die." 

IN  HIS  PUBLIC  CAPACITY. 

We  have  already  made  the  declaration  that  the  character  of  the 
Hon.  James  N.  Burnes  had  many  sides,  while  to  be  thoroughly 
understood  and  appreciated  it  would  have  to  be  summed  up  from 
several  standpoints — family,  social,  business,  public  and  political. 
Having  already  discussed  him  as  son,  husband,  father,  neighbor, 
citizen  and  friend,  it  may  not  be  amiss  or  inopportune  now  to  look 
into  his  public  and  political  life, 


136  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

He  entered  his  career  in  Missouri  at  the  very  foot  of  the  ladder. 
In  one  sense  fortune  had  been  good  to  him,  for  it  had  given  him 
splendid  physique,  rugged  development,  great  intellectual  power, 
untiring  energy  and  indomitable  will.  To  prove  this,  just  see  how 
— leaning  upon  the  arm  of  his  associate,  Butterworth,  the  hand  of 
death  even  then  tearing  remorselessly  at  his  heart-strings  —  he 
walked  erect  as  a  grenadier  on  guard  to  his  committee  room  and 
laid  him  down,  the  same  sweet  smile  on  his  placid  face,  and  the 
same  kind  light  in  his  frank,  clear  eyes,  which  even  then,  perhaps, 
were  gazing  upon  another  morn  than  ours. 

While  always  taking  an  eager  local  interest  in  politics — giving 
freely  of  his  time  and  money  to  the  organization  and  advancement 
of  the  Democratic  party — he  asked  nothing  for  himself,  nor  sought 
for  himself  any  place  of  political  profit  or  preferment.  He  was  then 
well  content  to  lay  the  foundations  broad  and  deep  for  that  career  of 
the  future  which  was  to  be  so  briefly  brilliant  and  solamentably  short. 

In  public  life  Missouri  has  sent  to  the  frontsome  veritable  giants. 
Their  names  belong  to  history,  and  their  actions  are  the  precious 
heirlooms  and  idols  of  the  commonwealth.  But  this  State,  however, 
no  matter  the  past,  had  never  one  to  stand  for  her  in  the  halls  of 
Congress  who  was  wiser  in  council,  bolder  in  action,  loftier  in 
bearing,  kinder  in  intercourse,  less  amenable  to  demagogy,  less  pli- 
ant to  sinister  surroundings,  less  affected  by  the  clamorings  of  the 
rabble,  less  easy  to  be  swerved  from  the  demands  of  duty,  less  im- 
pervious to  the  flatteries  and  the  seductions  of  the  designing — and 
surely  not  one  who  more  rigidly  lived  up  to  the  maxim  that  personal 
and  political  honor  were  synonymous  terms,  and  that  he  who 
strained  or  forswore  the  one  strained  and  forswore  the  other. 

When  Colonel  Burues  went  first  to  Washington  as  one  of  Mis- 
souri's representatives  he  was  new  to  Congress  and  to  the  ways  and 
surroundings  of  congressional  life.  Of  course  he  understood  thor- 
oughly the  nature  and  extent  of  the  resources  which  he  possessed, 
but  how  many  others  did?  He  saw  the  future  stretching  away 
before  him  as  some  new,  strange  land,  and  a  figure  therein  casting 
something  about  him,  now  on  this  side  and  now  on  that,  which 
might  have  been  a  horoscope.  Could  that  future  be  seized,  utilized, 
possessed,  encompassed? 

He  would  try. 

1  At  a  single  step  he  took  rank  with  the  vanguard.  Placed  next 
to  Mr.  Chairman  Randall  on  the  most  important  committee  in  the 
House,  that  of  appropriations,  he  soon  graduated  as  a  leader  of 
men.  Gifted  with  that  rarest  of  all  gifts,  the  gift  of  getting  acquainted, 
and  with  that  other  twin  brother  gift,  the  gift  of  never  forgetting  a 
face  or  a  person,  he  soon  knew  every  member  of  the  House,  and 
equally  as  soon  was  on  terms  with  all  of  the  heartiest  and  kindliest  in- 
tercourse. His  motto  as  a  Congressman  was:  "  In  business  no  pol- 
itics; in  politics  stand  by  the  party  to  a  funeral." 

How  he  did  grow  from  the  very  start!  One  had  to  know  him, 
be  with  him,  be  close  to  him,  be  where  one  could  see  him  daily  in 
the  House  to  know  what  manner  of  a  gladiator  he  was.  When  the 
French  spoliation  claims  bill — likely  to  take  anywhere  from  thirty 
to  eighty  millions  of  money  out  of  the  treasury— was  up  for  passage 
Colonel  Burnes  scored  his  greatest  and  proudest  triumph.  It  was 
the  day  of  the  combat.  He  came  to  participate  in  it,  faultlessly 
attired.  A  little  white  tuberose  bud  was  pinned  to  his  immaculate 
coat.  Any  one  man  among  the  spectators  in  the  gallery  might  have 
whispered  to  another:  "What!  has  Spartacus  renewed  his  youth 
and  changed  his  nationality?" 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  137 

The  battle  began.  Colonel  Burnes  led  the  fight  against  the 
measure.  His  attitude  was  superb — his  knowledge  of  details  wonder- 
ful. Every  effort  known  to  the  ingenuity  of  legislation  was  massed 
as  a  catapult  to  crush  him  at  a  blow.  Question  after  question  poured 
in  upon  him  as  so  many  javelin  points  to  pierce  the  armor  of  his 
perfect  imperturbability.  He  stood  erect  as  Ajax  with  the  lightning 
flashes  of  the  opposition  flashing  all  about  him'.  To  every  speech  he 
listened  deferentially  as  though  in  her  boudoir  he  was  listening  to 
the  low,  soft  words  of  some  beautiful  woman.  All  over  his  face 
was  that  peculiar  smile  of  his,  a  little  bit  quizzical,  a  little  bit  satir- 
ical, a  little  bit  eager  and  questioning  ;  but  always  winning  and 
attractive  as  though  it  had  just  been  glorified  by  the  burst  of  some 
sudden  sunshine. 

Assailant  after  assailant  leaped  to  cross  steel  with  him  at  close 
quarters.  He  simply  shortened  his  sword  arm  as  he  sainted,  and 
murmured  "  Habet  ! "  "Habet!" — take  it,  take  it — and  another 
one  lay  dead  on  the  dripping  sands  of  the  arena. 

Every  joint  in  his  harness  was  lance  proof.  The  color  in  his 
cheeks  scarcely  deepened.  His  explanations  were  luminous;  his 
answers,  not  longer  than  a  hand,  were  vivid  as  the  flashes  i  f  flame 
in  the  night.  The  ablest  debaters  in  the  House  formed  phalanx  and 
moved  to  his  overthrow.  For  this  one  he  had  a  rapid  saber-cut  of 
speech;  for  this  one  a  delicate  word  of  badinage,  which  went  home 
like  a  knife  thrust;  for  this  one  some  rolicking  piece  of  railery, 
which  overwhelmed  him  with  the  laughter  of  his  colleagues;  for  this 
one  a  massive  array  of  unanswerable^facts;  for  this  one  a  logic  so 
cold  as  almost  to  freeze,  and  so  much  of  the  iron  sort  as  to  beat  down 
all  opposition;  and  for  this  one  some  courteous  reply,  high  bred  anc' 
facile,  which  made  the  seeker  after  the  light  see  it  almost  ere  the 
lamps  were  lit  to  hasten  the  revealment. 

Then  it  wasthat  Randall  leant  over  toward  old  man  Kelley  and 
whispered :  ' '  How  superb  he  is. " 

How  superb,  indeed  !  The  memorable  triumph  of  that  day  is 
still  a  wonder,  a  memory,  a  tradition,  a  delight  among  all  the  quid 
nuncs,  the  old  stagers,  the  old  critics  and  the  old  philosophers  at 
the  national  capital. 

And  now  what?  A  great  light  has  gone  out  from  the  political 
firmament  of  Missouri;  a  great  Democratic  leader  has  gone  to  his 
rest  with  the  blade  Excalibor  broken  in  his  hand,  and  his  bloodied 
banner  across  his  dauntless  bosom.  It  is  so  pitiful,  so  sorrowful 
so.  The  days  to  come  promise  much  of  evil  deeds  and  treacherous 
devil's  work.  Where  then  shall  those  turn  who  worship  the  very 
name  of  Democracy  to  find  the  fleetest  foot  on  the  corrie,  the  sagest 
council  in  cumber.  Find  them  !  When  Edward,  the  Black  Prince, 
was  told  that  the  lance-head  of  a  Breton  squire  had  found  the  life's 
blood  of  John  Chandos  in  an  insignificant  skirmish  at  Lussac  bridge, 
hepiteously  exclaimed:  "God  help  us,  then;  we  have  lost  every- 
thing on  the  nither  side  of  the  seas  ! " 

DEATH  OF  THE  PRINCE  IMPERIAL. 

[From  the  Sedalia  Democrat,  June,  1879.1 

At  last  the  full  particulars  of  the  death  of  the  young  Bonaparte 
have  been  published  to  the  world.  Sir  Evelyn  Wood  the  English 
general  who  accompanied  the  ex-Empress  Eugenia  on  her  mournful 
journey  to  the  place  in  Africa  where  her  son  was  killed  has  made 
his  report  to  the  British  Government,  It  was  quite  brief,  yet  it  con- 


138  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

tained  a  story  of  quiet  heroism  that  will  be  as  deathless  as  immor- 
tality itself  is  deathless. 

He  stood  at  bay  like  a  lion,  says  the  report,  and  died  fighting 
like  a  hero.  On  his  body  were  seven  wounds,  his  sword  was  broken 
and  his  revolver  was  empty.  Now,  all  this  is  very  little;  it  is  also  a 
great  deal.  Almost  any  sort  of  a  war  produces  such  heroes;  the  sort 
of  a  war  England  wages  with  barbarians  quite  a  number.  When  a 
soldier  comes  face  to  face  with  his  destiny  he  most  generally  dies, 
fighting  hard  like  a  wolf,  set  upon  or  encompassed.  Any  history  of 
the  Civil  War  in  America  is  rich  with  such  annals,  and  lurid  also. 
It  is  something  to  die,  no  matter  under  what  flag,  or  for  what  cause, 
or  king,  or  creed,  or  country.  It  is  perhaps,  easier  to  die  when  one 
is  unnoted,  isolated,  having  no  tongue  behind  to  cry  out  over  fate, 
nor  any  heart  to  make  a  moan. 

But  this  was  a  Prince,  who  died  from  assegai  wounds  in  Africa. 
Princes  do  not  often  so.  Princes  who  are  heirs  to  Austerlitz  and 
Waterloo  never  but  once  in  the  world's  life.  He  was  but  a  boy. 
His  mother  had  raised  him — that  is  to  say  he  had  been  made  pious, 
timid,  modest  like  a  girl,  and  sensitive  like  a  nun  at  an  altar.  One 
moment  as  he  stood  on  the  perilous  edge  of  the  fight  it  might  have 
appeared  as  if  Hoche  had  come  back  from  La  Vendee,  or  Desspix 
from  Marengo.  In  his  death  he  vindicated  his  dynasty.  He  died 
not  as  Bonapartes  have  done,  but  as  Bonapartes  should  have  done. 
Before  that  body  in  its  tropical  battlefield  the  French  republic  has 
no  need  to  keep  itself  uncovered.  He  stood  for  the  saber,  it  is  true, 
but  the  saber  has  ever  been  the  standard  of  France.  Gambetta 
preaches  peace,  but  it  is  the  peace  of  Samson  ere  the  thick  locks 
have  grown  long  again,  and  the  soft  undoing  wrought  by  Delilah 
has  hardened  into  war  last.  France  will  surely  feel  more  of  rever- 
ence for  the  Bonapartes  when  the  tale  is  told  of  how  this  last  one 
died  in  a  stronger  army,  true  to  his  name,  true  to  the  fame  of  the 
nation  which  had  cast  him  out,  and  true  to  those  mighty  hopes 
which  must  have  flitted  before  him  darkly — those  that  one  day 
would  make  him  the  ruler  of  an  empire  like  his  father's. 

Ridicule  is  a  merciless  weapon  with  the  French.  It  has  dealt 
savagely  with  many  high,  holy,  and  august  things.  Its  most  exquis- 
ite torture  is  to  be  found  in  tlie  newspapers.  These  never  failed  to 
show  sticking  out  from  under  the  long  scarlet  robe  of  the  phantom 
which  they  called  Louis  Napoleon,  the  great  muddy  boots  of  the 
coup  d'  etat.  These  newspapers  were  also  busy  with  this  boy.  He 
was  simply  like  an  old  piece  of  parlor  furniture  belonging  to  the 
Empire.  He  was  not  in  use  any  longer.  He  was  obsolete— an 
anachronism. 

But  death  sanctifies.  Tender  things  will  be  said  of  this  boy 
now  in  France,  and  much  recalled  of  his  heroic  death,  if  the  time 
ever  shall  come  when  any  Bonaparte  attempts  to  play  over  again  the 
role  of  his  ancestors. 

BAZAINE. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  April  30, 1887.1 

The  attempt  to  assassinate  Marshal  Bazaine,  once  a  prominent 
figure  in  French  history,  was  a  most  causeless  and  cowardly 
attempt.  The  usual  commentary  goes  with  the  announcement  of 
the  crime — the  would-be  assassin  is  believed  to  be  insane. 

Of  course.  Never  a  murderous  devil  yet  failed  to  have  put  up 
for  him  some  sort  of  a  plea  of  this  kind  whenever  lie  did  a  deed  that 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  139 

was  particularly  noticeable  for  its  horrible  details  and  its  atrocious 
cruelty.  "Whoever  is  the  least  bit  theatrical  in  the  gratification  of 
his  blood-mania  is  crazy  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  same  villain 
must  only  be  permitted  to  stab,  shoot  or  poison  in  a  calm,  deliberate, 
methodical  "manner.  If  he  does  not  speak,  very  well.  If  he  does 
not  change  color  in  presence  of  the  rigid  corpse  of  his  victim,  still 
very  well.  If  no  look,  or  word,  or  action  tells  that  somewhere 
about  the  murderer  there  is  a  soul,  it  is  just  splendid.  There 
is  no  insanity  about  that  man.  He  shall  be  hung  because 
his  equanimity  is  so  superb  and  yet  so  diabolical.  But  if  ever 
a  murderer  is  known  to  mutter  in  his  sleep,  be  seen  much 
alone,  be  heard  to  make  dire  threats,  act  strangely  upon  public 
occasions,  rave  over  little  things,  establish  a  reputation  as  a  crank, 
or  parade  the  streets  with  a"  brass  band — why,  he  is  insane,  of 
course,  and  must  not  be  punished  though  he  slay  a  hecatomb. 

Marshal  Bazaine  commanded  at  Me tz  during  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  and  after  the  battle  of  Gravelotte,  wherein  all  the  advantages 
of  the  fight  were  all  on  his  side,  he  surrendered  this  almost  impreg- 
nable fortress,  and  with  it  an  army  of  nearly  300,000  men.  Such  a 
surrender,  when  the  number  of  soldiers  surrendered  is  taken  into 
consideration,  never  occurred  before  in  history.  It  really  seems 
impossible  that  such  a  surrender  could  have  taken  place  without  a 
desperate  effort  to  break  through,  but  it  did  take  place,  and  when 
the  war  ended  Bazaine  was  tried  for  treason,  found  guilty,  sentenced 
to  be  shot,  had  his  sentence  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life  in 
the  Chateau  d'lf  by  President Thiers,  escaped  from  there  one  stormy 
night  in  an  open  boat  at  sea,  and  has  since  been  a  poor,  isolated, 
proscribed  political  exile  in  Spain.  And  now  the  man  who  has  just 
attempted  to  kill  him,  if,  indeed,  he  has  not  succeeded,  is  already 
being  hedged  about  from  the  garrote  by  being  declared  crazy. 

Was  Bazaine  guilty  of  treason  at  Metz?  Contemporaneous  his- 
tory is  of  the  opinion  that  he  was  not.  The  French  character  is 
such  that  at  every  period  of  national  disaster  it  furiously  demands  a 
scape-goat  or  a  victim.  This  desperate  lot  fell  upon  Bazaine.  At 
his  trial  he  proved  conclusively  that  the  fortress  he  was  ordered  to 
defend  was  almost  absolutely  barren  of  provisions;  that  the  heavy- 
guns  upon  the  fortifications  were  comparatively  without  ammuni- 
tion; that  his  musket  cartridges  had  been  reduced  to  sixty  rounds  to 
the  man;  that  he  was  encompassed  about  by  500,000  Germans;  that 
his  artillery  was  practically  useless  because  of  a  scarcity  of  horses 
and  grape  and  canister  shot,  and  because  he  had  positive  orders  from 
his  master,  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  to  make  the  besttermshe  could, 
but  under  no  circumstances  to  compromise  his  army  by  a  bloody 
but  indecisive  battle.  Napoleon's  object  was  plain.  He  never 
believed  that  the  Germans  would  dethrone  him,  and  he  wanted 
Bazaine's  army  to  re-establish  himself  upon  the  throne  of  France 
after  he  had  made  a  definite  treaty  of  peace  with  the  German  con- 
querors. 

Bazaine  was  also  with  Maximilian  in  Mexico,  and  gave  evidence 
there  of  much  soldierly  skill  and  rare  adminstrative  capacity.  He 
had  driven  Juarez  into  Texas,  held  the  more  populous  states  under 
a  complete  system  of  military  subjugation,  garrisoned  with  picked 
troops  the  more  important  cities,  and  was  just  getting  ready  to 
consolidate  the  power  thus  obtained,  and  to  issue  a  general  amnesty, 
both  civil  and  military,  when  the  civil  war  in  the  United  States 
came  to  an  end.  That  also  brought  to  an  end  the  French  occupa- 
tion. With  over  a  million  of  men  in  arms,  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment turned  instantly  to  an  emphatic  reassertion  of  the  Monroe 


140  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

doctrine,  and  ordered  Louis  Napoleon  to  get  out  of  Mexico  as  soon 
as  possible.  He  got  out,  and  rapidly. 

Bazaine  lias  been  held  responsible  for  the  death  of  Maximilian, 
and  a  multitude  of  penny-a-liners  have  gone  into  elaborate  details 
to  show  how  he  badgered,  outraged,  and  finally  betrayed  to  his 
undoing  the  hapless  Austrian. 

No  baser  lies  were  ever  told  to  blacken  the  name  and  the  fame  of 
a  splendid  soldier.  Marshal  Bazaiue  strove  the  best  he  knew  to  induce 
Maximilian  to  abandon  Mexico.  He  pointed  out  to  him  the  impossi 
bilityof  maintaining  his  position  in  a  country  that  was  against  him 
en  immse,  and  argued  from  a  purely  military  standpoint  that  it  would 
require  an  army  of  occupation  of  at  least  300, 000  soldiers  to  keep  him 
on histhrone, andhedid nothave  10, 000 reliable  troops.  Maximilian 
ref  usrd  to  be  guided  by  the  marshal,  and  in  so  refusing  hejost  his  life. 

From  a  simple  captain  of  a  company  in  an  infantry  regiment  of 
the  line,  Bazaine  fought  his  way  up  to  be  a  Marshal  of  France.  But 
for  Metz  he  would  to-day  have  been  an  honored  man  in  his  own 
cou mi y,  loved,  respected  and  surrounded  by  every  comfort  in  his 
old  age.  As  it  is,  he  may  be  dying  from  the  blow  of  an  assassin, 
poor,  friendless  an  exile,  and  a  so-called  traitor.  What  a  strange 
thing  is  fate. 

THE  NET  MYTH. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  15, 1887.] 

This  is  a  country  where  quite  a  number  of  men  will  not  stay 
dead  after  they  are  dead.  One  can  find  scores  of  people  who  con- 
scientiously believe  that  "Wilkes  Booth  is  still  alive  ;  nay  more,  who 
have  educated  themselves  to  the  belief  that  they  have  seen  him.  It 
has  not  been  so  very  long  ago  that  quite  along  and  interesting  story 
went  the  rounds  of  the  newspapers  to  the  effect  that  he  was  in  com- 
mand of  a  merchant  vessel  in  the  China  seas,  so  changed  by  a  life 
of  exposure,  toil,  and  hiding,  as  to  be  almost  impossible  of  recogni- 
tion even  by  his  mostintimate  friends. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate  the  number  of  times  that 
Quantrell  has  been  seen  and  conversed  with  since  he  was  killed  in 
Kentucky. 

But  ihe  other  day  Brigham  Young  was  encountered  in  the 
mountains  of  Utah,  in  strict  incognito,  and  waiting  and  watching 
against  an  hour  in  the  near  future  when  he  should  again  take  into 
his  liands  the  management  of  the  Mormon  State,  and  shield  and  save 
his  chosen  people  from  destruction. 

Once,  according  to  well  accepted  romance  or  story,  we  had  an 
unmistakable  Bourbon  prince  among  us,  the  Rev.  Eleazer  Williams, 
who  was  none  other  than  the  unfortunate  son  of  Louis  XVI.  and  his 
murdered  queen,  Marie  Antoinette. 

Now  conies  the  rehabilitation  of  another  myth,  and  the 
reclothing  of  it  with  flesh,  blood,  a  local  habitation,  and  a  name.  The 
local  habitation  is  the  little  town  of  Piedmont,  N.  C.,  and  the  name 
none  other  than  that  of  Michael  Ney,  Marshal  of  France,  Duke  of 
Elchingen,  Prince  of  Moskwa,  and  that  beloved  comrade  of  the 
mighty  Bonaparte,  who,  when  even  surrounded  by  half  a  million  of 
heroes,  called  him  alone  the  bravest  of  the  brave. 

The  story,  briefly  summed  up,  is  about  this:  Marshal  Ney  was 
not  shot  on  December  7,  1815,  as  all  history  declares.  Favored  by 
his  old  comrades,  who  were  detailed  to  see  the  execution  carried  out, 
a  condemned  criminal  was  put  in  his  place,  the  forms  of  the  killing 
were  duly  gone  through  with,  the  real  Key  escaped  to  the  United 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRTTTXGS.  141 

States,  taught  school  in  North  Carolina  under  the  name  of  Peter  S. 
Ney,  lived  there  until  about  1837  as  schoolteacher,  and  finally  died 
as  a  worn  and  broken  old  man  in  either  1838  or  1839. 

These  are  the  most  essential  points.  To  make  P.  S.  Ney,  the 
schoolmaster,  become  the  real  Michael  Ney,  Marshal  of  France, 
declared  to  have  been  stood  up  against  a  dead  wall  and  shot  about 
daylight  of  a  raw,  cold  morning  in  December,  1815,  much  ingenious 
filling  in  is  resorted  to,  and  much  plausible  fabrication. 

Unless  history  is  a  lie,  this  story,  as  now  being  so  extensively 
told,  has  been  too  carefully  arranged,  overworked,  and  overdone. 
The  North  Carolina  Ney  was  a  man  of  fine  education  and  knew  la\v. 
Marshal  Ney  had  scarcely  any  education  at  all,  and  perhaps  in  Lis 
whole  life  had  never  looked  into  a  law  book.  The  North  Carolina 
Ney  was  very  fond  of  strong  drink,  and  upon  many  described  occa- 
sions got  uproariously  drunk.  Marshal  Ney  was  noted  for  his 
abstemious  habits,  and  especially  for  his  dislike  of  the  various  forms 
of  alcohol.  Indeed,  it  was  to  this  fact  alone  thathe  himself  attrib- 
uted his  wonderful  endurance  throughout  all  the  horrors  of  the 
Russian  retreat,  an  endurance  which  Napoleon  noted  when  he  gave 
info  his  hands  the  keeping  of  the  rear  guard  and  the  preservation  of 
all  that  was  finally  preserved  of  the  Grand  Army. 

The  North  Carolina  Ney  was  always  on  guard  lest  his  identity 
should  be  suspected.  He  would  never  speak  of  himself,  never  say 
whether  he  had  been  a  soldier  or  not,  never  discuss  Bonaparte 
except  as  a  thousand  of  his  enthusiastic  pupils  might  have  do&e, 
never  wrote  or  received  letters  from  France,  and  once,  when 
addressed  by  a  wandering  Frenchman  as  "Marshal  Ney,"  gave  the 
poor  unfortunate  such  a  terrible  look  that  he  soon  sneaked  away 
from  his  presence  and  fled  the  neighborhood  in  mortal  fear  lest  he 
be  slaughtered. 

Now,  what,  under  such  circumstances,  might  not  the  real  Mar- 
shal Ney  have  done,  admitting  always  for  the  sake  of  argumert  the 
proposition  that  he  had  escaped,  through  the  connivance  of  his 
friends,  the  cowardly  vengeance  of  the  Bourbons.  The  very  first 
moment  he  landed  upon  American  soil  he  was  as  free  as  the  wind. 
No  living  mortal  would  have  dared  to  lay  hands  upon  him  for  any 
political  crime  much  less  for  the  alleged  crime  of  devotion  to  his  (  m- 
peror  and  to  his  beloved  France.  He  had  left  behind  him  a  v.ife 
whom  he  idolized,  and  children  who  were  the  joy  of  his  life.  Why 
should  he  not  have  written  to  them,  had  them  to  have  joined  1dm, 
found  for  them  a  happy  home  in  a  country  where  his  last  days 
might  have  been  spent  in"  tranquil  peace  and  rest? 

Had  this  course  not  been  to  him  the  most  preferable  one,  what 
was  to  have  prevented  his  own  return  to  France  after  the  expiration 
of  a  few  years  of  exile?  An  amnesty  had  been  granted  by  Louis 
XVIII.,  by  Charles  X.,  and  by  Louis  Philippe.  In  the  reign  of 
either  he  might  have  gone  back  home  with  perfect  safety,  and  he 
lived  through  the  reign  of  two  of  these,  and  through  many  years  of 
the  reign  of  the  other. 

As  to  the  question,  however,  of  the  real  Ney's  death  at  the 
hands  of  the  Bourbons,  perhaps  that  has  never  been  doubted  by  any 
one  except  these  North  Carolina  quid  nuncs  and  sensation  concoct- 
ers.  Napoleon  tells  at  St.  Helena,  both  to  Las  Casas  and  O'Meara, 
all  about  Ney's  death.  Montholon,  in  his  memoirs,  does  the  same. 
Bourrienne  is  exceedingly  full  upon  the  subject.  A  strong  effort 
was  made  to  save  him,  but  Fouche,  that  horrible  butcher  of  the  reign 
of  terror— that  spy,  thief,  traitor,  coward,  servile  slave,  and  cringing 
suppliant  at  the  feet  of  power— swore  that  Ney  should  be  killed  as  a 


142  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

sort  of  sacrifice  to  appease  the  fury  of  the  allies.  Key  was  chosen 
as  the  victim  because  he  had  fought  them  oftener,  more  desperately, 
with  more  ferocious  success,  had  put  more  of  them  to  rout,  killed 
more  of  them,  was  more  indomitable  and  created  wilder  and  fiercer 
havoc  in  their  ranks  than  any  other  subordinate  who  served  under 
Napoleon.  Hence  they  hated  him  with  th»  hatred  of  kings  for  the 
very  qualities  which  had  served  to  make  him  famous  and  glorious. 
The  Bourbons  demanded  his  death  because  of  his  heroic  efforts  to 
save  the  day  at  Waterloo,  which,  if  saved,  would  have  precipitated 
them  into  another  flight  into  England. 

Wellington  was  also  besought  to  save  Ney,  but  Wellington 
never  saved  anybody.  A  more  supremely  cold,  greedy,  selfish  man 
never  figured  in  the  pages  of  history.  The  army  which  saved  him 
and  glorified  him  at  Waterloo  he  called  "a  beastly  army,"  and  so 
grudgingly  did  he  bestow  praise  upon  those  who  served  under  him 
that  one  could  scarcely  ever  tell  from  his  dispatches  and  bulletins 
from  the  battle  field  whether  he  ever  had  such  a  thing  as  a  private, 
a  corporal,  a  sergeant,  a  lieutenant,  a  captain,  a  major,  a  colonel,  or 
a  general  of  any^  grade  under  him.  As  he  was  among  his  soldiers, 
so,  also,  was  he  in  public,  in  private,  and  in  the  midst  of  his  family. 

However,  all  this  is  a  digression.  Bourrienne  refers  especially 
to  the  North  Carolina  myth  and  dwells,  because  of  it,  especially 
upon  the  actions  of  Ney  after  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons.  He 
tells  how  Ney,  believing  that  he  was  protected  by  the  terms  of  the 
general  surrender,  made  no  effort  to  escape,  whichmight  have  been 
easily  accomplished.  How,  when  ordered  for  trial  before  a  military 
court,  he  pleaded  his  privilege  as  a  peer  of  France  and  demanded 
to  have  a  jury  of  his  peers.  In  doing  this,  said  Napoleon,  he  signed 
his  own  death  warrant.  His  old  comrades  in  arms  would  have 
acquitted  him.  Bourrienne  finally  goes  into  minute  particulars  of 
the  execution,  giving  the  name  of  the  commander  of  the  firing 
party,  a  fanatical  Bourbon  emigrant,  describes  the  scene,  the  death 
moments,  the  grave,  and  the  fury  of  the  old  soldiers  afterward. 

No,  the  Ney  of  North  Carolina  was  either  a  hoax  or  an  impos- 
ter. 

DON  CARLOS  AND  MEXICO. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  23, 1887.] 

Nothing  could  possibly  be  more  absurd  than  the  story  that  Don 
Carlos,  of  Spain,  is  coming  to  Mexico  to  create  an  empire  and  erect 
a  throne.  If  he  comes  to  Mexico  at  all,  which  is  a  matter  of  very 
much  doubt,  he  would  come  simply  as  any  other  Spanish  gentleman, 
and  as  such  would  bear  himself  what  time  he  remained  in  the 
country. 

As  for  making  an  empire  out  of  Mexico,  that  is  the  silliest  non- 
sense ever  born  in  the  brain  of  a  crank.  France  tried  it  when  the 
United  States  was  struggling  in  the  toils  of  a  furious  Civil  War. 
First  and  last  no  less  than  forty  thousand  veteran  French  soldiers 
were  operating  in  Mexico  at  one  time,  to  say  nothing  of  the  native 
forces  enlisted  in  the  cause  of  Maximilian,  and  yet  the  very  best 
that  they  could  do  was  to  hold  the  towns  while  the  Juaristas  held 
the  country.  All  they  ever  owned,  or  occupied,  or  controlled,  or 
felt  safe  in,  was  that  extent  of  territory  and  no  more  which  their 
cannon  covered.  When,  finally,  the  French  were  recalled,  the 
Juaristas  closed  in  behind  them,  generally  a  day's  march  behind 
and  saw  them  safe  out  of  the  so-called  empire.  Then  they  turned 
about,  toppled  over  poor  Maximilian,  and  shot  him  with  about  as 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  143 

many  compunctions  of  conscience  as  they  would  have  shot  a  prairie 
wolf.  The  farce  ended  with  a  tragedy. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  who  or  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  Don 
Carlos  business.  To  one  who  has  lived  in  Mexico  and  understands 
something  of  the  Mexican  situation  the  story  is  too  absurd  even  for 
an  audience  of  cranks.  They  say  he  is  to  come  as  a  special  repre- 
sentative of  the  Church  party.  Aft  hat  Church  party?  Mexico  is  a 
Catholic  country.  There  is  no  other  religion  there  except  the  Cath- 
olic religion.  Here  and  there  in  a  few  of  the  larger  cities  a  Protest- 
ant mission  or  two  may  live  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  feebly,  bur, 
the  great  mass  of  the  nation  is  as  Catholic  as  Spain  or  Austria.  Then 
what  is  the  use  of  talking  about  this  idiotic  myth  of  a  Church 
party  ? 

The  concoct ers  of  the  Don  Carlos  story  also  make  him  out  a 
Spaniard,  who  is  to  have  an  especial  backing  at  the  hands  of  the 
Spanish  colony  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  This  colony  is  to  take  him  in 
charge,  fete  him,  chaperone  him,  make  a  social  lion  out  of  him,  put 
him  en  rapport  with  the  blue  bipods,  enlist  aristocracy  on  his  side, 
array  bank  accounts  under  his  standard,  provide  the  ways  and 
means  of  revolution,  revolutionize. 

The  Spanish  colony!  Lord  bless  us  every  one,  if  revolutions  in 
Mexico  were  done  up  in  bunches  like  asparagus,  the  Spanish  colony 
could  not  even  get  to  see  the  ground  from  which  had  been  cut  a 
single  asparagus  stalk,  much  less  to  encompass  an  entire  bundle. 
The  Spanish  colony  is  composed  of  an  exceedingly  stiff  and  formal 
lot  of  senors  and  senores,  with  some  beautiful  senoritas  sandwiched 
between,  young  plants  of  grace  in  every  respect,  and  fair  to  look 
upon  as  the  blush  rose  or  the  lily.  The  wine  is  good,  the  discourse 
grave,  the  minuets  stately;  but  when  you  say  revolution  you  say 
aloes  to  the  honeycomb  and  ice  to  the  Burgundy.  Thereafter,  the 
Spanish  colony  might  help  to  make  Don  Carlos  fit  for  an  auto  defe, 
but  never  for  a  foray  that  had  vigor  enough  in  it  for  another  Quere- 
taro.  The  Spanish  colony  was  formed  for  other  purposes.  The 
nearest  approach  it  will  ever  make  to  bloodshed  will  be  a  bull  fight, 
and  the  nearest  approach  to  an  uprising  the  crush  at  a  theater  when 
some  bright,  particular  star  sings  who  is  a  Spanish  favorite. 

Another  thing:  Nobody  has  got  any  business  fooling  about 
Mexico  under  the  impression  that  thrones  grow  on  trees  down  there. 
It  has  learned  many  a  stark,  stubborn  and  stalwart  lesson  lately. 
Its  own  revolutions  have  been  remorsely  drowned  out  in  blood.  Its 
own  revolutionists  have  been  stood  up  against  a  dead  wall  and  shot 
in  droves  to  cure  them  of  the  old  robber  fever,  of  the  old  robber 
pronunciamiento  days.  It  is  as  matter-of-fact  as  an  oak  tree,  and  as 
logical  as  a  column  of  figures.  It  means  to  be  a  nation  among 
nations — not  the  by-word  and  reproach  of  all  who  set  any  store  by 
stability,  and  believe  that  self-respect  must  first  begin  at  home 
before  national  respect  can  be  inculcated  and  insisted  upon  abroad. 

Don  Carlos  may  go  to  Mexico  and  have  a  most  delightful  visit, 
but  if  he  proposes  to  potter  much  about  dynamite  he  had  infinitely 
better  stay  where  he  is. 

POOR  FRANCE. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  June  2, 1887.] 

At  last  the  red  Republicans  and  the  opportunists  have  done 
their  work,  and  to  the  revolt  there  has  succeeded  a  revolution. 
General  Boulanger  has  been  overthrown. 

If  this  were  all,  if  this  were  simply  the  pulling  down  of  one 


144  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

man  and  the  putting  up  of  another,  if  this  were  only  the  rising  or  the 
falling  of  the  political  mercury  in  that  most  mercurial  of  all  barom- 
eters, Paris,  if  this  merely  meant  that  the  king  is  dead  or  that  the 
king  lives,  if  behind  the  face  of  the  ever  piquant  and  attractive 
farce  there  was  not  another  face — eager,  hungry  and  splashed 
somewhat  with  blood  —  why,  what  difference  would  it  make  who 
strutted  his  brief  hour  upon  the  stage,  or  whether  the  dances  were 
such  as  the  grisette  might  enjoy  at  her  last  sou,  equally  with  the 
grand  dame  at  her  last  lover? 

But  it  was  not  the  French  citizen  Boulanger,  who  was  thus 
put  upon,  nor  the  French  General  Boulanger,  nor  the  Secretary  of 
War  Boulanger,  but  it  was  Boulanger  the  idea,  the  prescience,  the 
terrible  embodiment  of  a  maimed  and  mutilated  nation's  half-stifled 
cry  for  vengeance. 

In  the  presence  of  those  two  cruel  and  yet  bleeding  wounds, 
Sedan  and  Gravelotte,  it  does  seem  that  even  a  congress  of  Jacobins 
or  dynamiters  might  have  had  some  pity  for  France.  That'instead 
of  the  can-can  in  sight  of  these  wounds  the  entire  representative 
body  should  have  arisen,  uncovered  and  saluted.  That  instead  of  a 
whole  forest  full  of  chattering  monkeys,  there  should  have  come 
out  at  least  from  some  one  single  jungle  a  roar  that  told  of  a  lion 
crouching.  That  instead  of  whole  parliamentary  rights  wasted  in 
shriek  and  grimace,  and  shrug  and  epilepsy,  something  should  have 
been  heard  somewhere  of  the  sounding  of  trumpets  and  the  whist- 
ling of  s\vord-b!ades.  That  instead  of  there  being  only  heard  in  all 
the  darkness  the  gutteral  croakings  and  chokings  of  carrion  birds, 
the  putrid  offal  thick  in  their  distended  throats,  there  might  have 
been  heard  the  screams  and  the  gatherings  of  the  symbolic  eagles, 
scenting  from  their  eyries  the  blue  grapes  which  grew  by  the  Rhine, 
even  as  in  the  old  days  and  from  the  towering  Alps  they  scented  the 
oil  and  the  wine  of  another  Paradise  named  Italy.  Boulanger  stood 
for  the  army — that  poor  army  which  has  been  so  cheated,  juggled 
with,  preyed  upon  by  jobber,  ruinously  led  and  stupidly  fought 
since  Solferino.  At  Spicheren  the  ball-cartridges  were  a  size  too 
large  for  the  bore  of  the  chassepots.  At  Metz  it  had  neither  shell 
nor  caunistershot.  Two  days  before  Gravelotte  its  meat  ration  had 
failed.  At  Sedan  it  was  shoeless,  tunicless  and  well-nigh  out  of 
ammunition.  In  front  of  Paris,  and  yet  in  the  heart  of  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  fertile  nations  on  earth,  it  went  hungry  for  even 
bread.  In  the  end  it  had  to  take  from  the  bloody  hands  of  its  own 
ferocious  and  ravening  wolves  of  countrymen  what  was  left  of 
desolate,  blackened,  mutilated  Paris. 

Boulanger  took  this  army;  bound  up  its  wounds;  recalled  its 
history;  made  its  standards  once  more  adorable;  gave  it  the  esprit 
de  corps  it  had  not  known  since  it  had  transfigured  Europe  at  the 
double  quickstep;  dealt  with  it  as  some  perfect  machine  which  had 
a  soul;  taught  it  that  patriotism  was  the  holiest  word  ever  created 
by  God  upon  the  lips  of  man;  gave  it  the  splendid  resources  which 
come  from  ample  numbers,  organization,  enthusiasm,  discipline, 
ambition,  a  battle  cry  that  had  vengeance  in  it,  and  then,  as  one 
huge,  compact,  colossal  mass,  he  held  it,  waiting  and  obedient,  for 
another  march  to  the  Rhine. 

This,  we  say,  is  what  Boulanger  had  done  for  the  army,  and 
because  he  had  he  was  slaughtered  by  communists  and  dynamiters, 
joined  to  a  lot  of  demagogues  and  politicians  that  have  for  fifteen 
years  made  France  the  wonder,  the  pity,  and  the  scorn  of  Europe- 

To  get  a  good  look  at  the  crime  and  the  cowardice  of  such  an 
act,  take  down  simply  the  map  of  Prussia  after  Jena  Auerstadt  and 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  145 

Friedland.  As  a  kingdom  it  was  almost  literally  wiped  out.  The 
omnipotent  hand  of  Napoleon,  clothed  With  the  thunderbolts,  had 
suddenly  been  thrust  forward  through  the  gloom,  and  the  torment 
of  battle,  and  with  a  sponge  soaked  in  blood  had  obliterated  the  fig- 
ures which  stood  for  Prussia  from  the  blackboard  of  continental 
Europe.  The  King  had  no  capital.  The  beautiful  Queen — beautiful 
as  some  celestial  portrait  cut  from  a  picture-book  the  angels  paint 
and  keep  m  heaven — was  dying  of  a  broken  heart.  Prussia  itself, 
and  in  every  extremity, was  stricken  with  a  paralysis  pitiful  to  even 
its  French  despoilers. 

Two  men  came  as  the  Lord's  annointed,  two  men — Stein  and 
Scharnhorst.  They  pieced  here  and  they  patched  there.  They 
darned  this  hole  and  they  basted  that  one.  It  was  Prussia  always. 
Men,  they  whispered,  for  they  did  not  dare  to  cry  aloud,  everything 
for  Prussia.  If  you  die,  yes,  many  of  you  will,  but  you  die  for 
Prussia.  You  give  up  your  silver,  your  jewelry,  your  fruits  your 
fields,  your  homes,  your  live  stock,  your  household  goods — yes,  yes, 
we  know  all  this  very  well,  but  it  is  for  Prussia.  Your  boy  children 
never  come  back  to  you;  no,  but  they  went  away  for  Prussia.  You 
go  hungry  often,  and  your  uniform  is  a  mass  of  rags,  and  the  blood 
from  your  naked  feet  has  splotched  the  snow,  but  if  only  your  car- 
tridge-boxes are  full  for  Prussia  what  matter  the  haversacks  that  are 
empty.  Here's  old  Blucher.  Here's  old  Marshal  Vorwarts,  who  for 
twenty  years  was  always  drunk;  who  for  twenty  years  was  always 
in  the  saddle;  who,  when  he  wished  to  sleep  well,  took  off  one  spur, 
and  who,  when  he  wished  to  sleep  luxuriously,  took  off  both. 

And  the  result?  Blucher  got  to  Waterloo;  Grouchy  never  got 
there  at  all. 

But  to  reach  Boulanger's  case  and  see  it  in  all  of  its  concentrated 
idiocy  and  want  of  patriotism.  It  is  only  necessary  to  imagine 
Stein  and  Scharnhorst  deposed  by  the  very  nation  it  was  about  to 
save,  and  to  restore  again,  unmutilated  and  greater  in  power  and 
territory  than  ever,  to  its  old  imperial  rank  among  the  monarchies 
of  Europe.  In  France  the  demagogues  and  politicians,  joined  to 
the  red  caps  and  dynamite,  would  have  torn  those  two  army  creat- 
ors to  pieces  even  before  they  had  given  a  soul  to  the  army  which 
they  had  summoned  from  chaos  to  encounter  one  who  might  well 
have  been  looked  upon  as  more  than  mortal. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  France,  in  its  last  war  with  Germany, 
never  won  even  a  skirmish  from  Weissomburg  to  Paris  ?  Is  it  any 
wonder,  then,  that  it  has  never  had  among  its  commanders  such  a 
soldier  as  Von  Moltke,  nor  among  its  politicians  such  a  statesman 
as  Bismarck  ?  Von  Moltke  in  Paris  would  have  been  exiled  at 
thirty.  Under  that  hydra-headed  thing  called  the  French  Republic 
Bismarck  would  have  either  gone  mad  or  died  before  his  first 
protocol,  with  all  that  mighty  intellect  of  his  buried  with  him,  as 
absolutely  unknown  to  the  world  as  the  grave  of  Moses. 

So  France  appears  to  Europe,  and  so  she  will  always  appear  as 
long  as  Paris  is  Babylon,  qualified  by  steam,  electricity  and  daily 
newspapers  There  is  no  more  iron  in  the  blood  of  Paris.  What  the 
newspapers  have  spared  in  the  way  of  reverence,  religion  and  old- 
fashioned  truth,  manhood  and  virtue,  the  faubourgs  have  finished. 
Ferry  is  a  fearful  old  mugwump,  decayed  at  the  top.  It  is  doubtful 
if  Grevy  ever  heard  of  Austerlitz,  and  DeFreycenet  is  a  second  Jim 
Blaine,  without  half  Blaine's  ability. 

The  monkey  part  of  the  French  character  is  in  the  saddle. 


146  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

EDMUND  O'DONOYAN. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  June  2, 1887.] 

This  is  the  name  of  an  Irish  journalist  who  made  himself 
famous.  A  little  thin  shred  of  a  life  of  him  has  just  been  published 
in  England,  not  greater  than  seventy  or  eighty  pages,  perhaps, 
when  it  might  well  have  gone  to  five  hundred. 

His  father  was  a  learned  professor  in  the  University  of  Dublin. 
Devoted  to  his  work  there,  he  permitted  his  eldest  born,  Edmund, 
to  do  pretty  much  as  he  pleased,  and  he  pleased  to  become  a  surgeon. 
After  a  little  practice  in  this  line,  it  further  pleased  him  to  become 
a  botanist  and  a  geologist.  Then  he  traveled.  Then  he  began  a 
life  of  adventure  which,  in  many  ways,  was  one  of  the  most  adven- 
turous lives  that  ever  had  an  abiding  place  in  the  realms  of  either 
truth,  romance,  or  fiction. 

Irishman  born,  bred  and  educated,  he  was  one  among  the  very 
first  to  espouse  the  Fenian  cause,  and  give  to  it  youth,  energy,  dar- 
ing, enthusiasm  and  devotion.  He  mastered  the  military  tactics 
of  the  text-books  that  he  might  become  a  drill  sergeant.  He  was 
rarely  gifted  by  Nature  to  be  both  orator  and  agitator,  and  he  was 
both  at  a  gallop.  He  enlisted  recruits,  organized  them,  drilled  them 
when  he  could,  in  some  barn,  or  some  lonely  hillside,  in  some 
isolated  glen.  When  the  drilling  was  done,  the  exhortations  would 
begin,  and  these  went  home  to  the  hearts  of  his  young  Irishmen 
ready  to  follow  their  young  drill  master  to  war  or  the  scaffold. 

James  Stevens,  the  great  head,  front,  and  leader  of  the  Fenian 
movement,  was  his  life-long  guide,  counselor  and  friend.  One  day 
the  British  authorities  laid  hold  upon  Stevens  and  made  him  fast  in 
the  dungeon  of  a  Dublin  prison.  They  could  not  or  did  not  keep 
him,  for  he  soon  broke  out  and  fled  to  France.  O 'Donovan  quickly 
followed  after,  joining  him  in  Paris.  Then  with  tongue,  pen  and 
purse  he  wrought  splendidly  for  his  chief,  and  for  the  cause  of  Ire- 
land so  dear  to  his  heart. 

The  Franco-Prussian  War  came  on,  and  gave  him  the  oppor- 
tunity so  long  beseechod  for,  the  opportunity  to  make  his  first  essay 
in  arms.  He  joined  a  French  regiment  of  the  line  as  a  private  sol- 
dier, fought  as  became  his  race,  was  named  a  captain  on  the  field  of 
battle  for  heroic  deeds,  was  shot  down,  captured,  locked  up  in  a 
German  fortress,  escaped  through  sheer  pity  if  not  a  tenderer  senti- 
ment of  the  gaoler's  daughter,  and  got  safely  home  once  more  to 
Ireland. 

The  Carlists  were  next  to  break  loose  among  the  hills  of  Spain, 
and  thither  rushed  O'Donovan  as  a  correspondent  for  the  London 
News.  Somewhat  of  a  guerrilla,  much  of  a  journalist  and  a  passa- 
ble artist,  he  fought,  wrote  and  sketched  until  his  reputation  became 
European.  Meanwhile  he  had  learned  to  speakFrench,  Spanish  and 
German.  Afterward  he  added  to  these  Turkish,  Russian  and  Arabic 
and  two  or  three  dialects  for  especial  use  among  the  Tekkes  and  Turco- 
mans of  Tartary.  Admirable  polyglot,  was  there  ever  known  in 
all  newspaper  history  before  or  since  a  journalist  so  thoroughly 
equipped  for  war  by  land  or  sea  among  the  Arabs  or  the  Cossacks, 
by  the  blue  Bosphorus,  or  where,  God  willing,  old  Mazeppas  steeds 
to-morrow  , 

"Shall  prraze  at  ease 
Beyond  the  swift  Borysthenes?" 

One  day,  while  still  fighting,  and  writing,  and  penciling  among 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  147 

the  guerrillas  of  Don  Carlos — the  same  Don  Carlos,  by  the  way, 
whose  name  of  late  has  been  so  absurdly  mixed  up  with  some  certain 
intrigues  or  conspiracies  in  Mexico — a  dream,  a  vision,  an  inspira- 
tion came  to  him  as  he  lay  by  a  bivouac  fire,  the  night  wind  keen 
like  a  knife  and  the  canteen  empty. 

He  would  see  what  the  Russians  were  doing  in  Central  Asia; 
that  is  to  say,  he  would  go  into  the  jaws  of  a  lion,  and,  more  proba- 
bly into  the  jaws  of  death.  Russia  was  gathering  herself  together 
there  lor  a  mighty  spring  upon  Merv  and  the  Hindoo  Kush  Mount- 
ains, the  gates  to  Herat.  This  spring  was  afterward  made  just  as 
O'Donovan  said  it  would  be, and  how  he  said  it  would  be,  and  when 
he  said  it  would  be.  England  then  remembered  the  warning  words 
of  this  prophetic  Irishman,  young  as  he  was,  and  Fenian  though  he 
was,  as  looking  westward  from  the  walls  of  Candahar  she  could  see 
the  lances  of  the  Cossacks,  clear  cut  and  uplifted,  wrathful  against 
the  lurid  sunset. 

Every  attempt  made  by  an  Englishman  to  get  into  the  Russian 
possessions  of  Central  Asia  had  theretofore  failed.  Most  of  the 
attempts  were  stopped  at  the  frontier-  If  the  frontier  was  barely  got 
over  by  some  one  bolder  than  another,  a  cloud  of  cavalry  instantly 
enveloped  him,  and  he  was  given  his  choice  to  quit  the  country  for- 
ever or  die  by  the  rope.  It  is  not  recorded  that  any  of  the  adven- 
turers came  to  an  end  so  ignominious.  All  the  Oases  in  and  around 
Merv  was  an  unknown  land  to  England.  All  that  was  known  by 
anybody  about  it  was  the  knowledge  that  it  was  inhabited  by  Russian 
specters.  They  flitted  hither  and  thither  through  the  gloom,  but 
what  were  they  doing?  O'Donovan  took  it  upon  himself  to  find  out. 
He  laid  his  plans  fully  before  the  London  News;  explained  them  in 
every  detail  and  ramification.  He  was  endorsed  and  they  were 
endorsed,  and  he  started. 

'Twere  long  to  tell  of  that  wonderful  adventure.  Of  the  foes 
that  he  baffled,  the  streams  that  he  swam,  the  disguises  that  he 
assumed,  the  ambushments  that  he  escaped,  the  robbers  that  he  out- 
witted, the  Cossacks  that  he  outrode,  the  chiefs  that  he  bribed,  the 
coolness  that  never  weakened  and  the  smiling  audacity  which 
abode  to  the  end.  He.won,  however,  in  the  desperate  race,"  and  liis 
book,  "The  New  Oasis,"  was  the  result.  It  was  printed  by  five 
nations,  one  among  them  being  even  Russia  herself,  and  well  all  of 
them  may  have  done  so,  for  it  contained  more  accurate  and  valuable 
information  upon  the  Asiatic  positions  of  Russia  and  Great  Britain 
than  has  ever  yet  been  put  in  print  before  or  since  the  famous  gal- 
lop. The  pitcher,  however,  was  about  to  go  for  the  last  time  to  the 
well.  The  night  was  beginning  to  fall  and  the  darkness  to  gather. 
One  of  the  purest  and  most  dauntless  spirits  journalism  ever  gave  to 
the  newspaper  world  to  ennoble  it  and  crowd  it  thicker  still  with  yet 
more  unselfish  and  heroic  deeds  was  about  to  take  its  flight  forever. 

The  Soudan  was  all  aflame.  The  Arab  had  turned  savagely 
upon  the  Egyptian,  and  there  was  war  between  civilizations  as  old 
as  Abraham.  Of  course  O'Donovan  could  never  stay  his  hand 
when  all  that  was  hoary  and  majestic  in  the  history  of  the  race 
might  look  down  upon  his  marchings  and  his  bivouacs,  his  battles 
by  day  and  his  reveries  by  night. 

He  almost  flew  to  Cairo,  and  was  hot  and  eager  with  impatience 
until  he  joined  the  army  of  Hicks  Pasha  on  its  last  ma*rch  to  exter- 
mination. Not  a  man  of  it,  something  over  eleven  thousand,  ever 
survived  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  monstrous  slaughter.  Edmund 
O'Donovan  perished  with  the  rest.  He  had  a  presentiment  that  he 
should  never  survive  the  campaign,  but  in  spite  of  it,  if  not  because 


148  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

of  it,  he  appeared  to  be  all  the  more  determined  to  see  if  fate  had 
really  and  finally  forsaken  him.  Surely  this  English  life  of  him 
will  soon  be  republished  in  America. 

THE  REVISED  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  June  13, 1887.] 

We  refer  to  the  Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testament.  It  can 
not  be  made  to  supersede  the  old  King  James  translation.  It  came 
with  a  great  flourish  of  religious  trumpets.  For  ten  years  it  was 
in  the  hands  of  scholars  said  to  be  in  every  way  exalted.  When  the 
work  was  done,  the  cry  went  up  from  orthodox  lips  that  it  marked  a 
wonderful  epoch  in  religious  history.  It  was  to  fasten  the  attention 
of  the  world  upon  it,  and  thereby  bring  about  such  an  upheaval  as 
had  never  been  known  in  all  the  long  record  of  spiritual  movements, 
uprisings  and  revivals.  Multitudes  of  those  who  professed  to  be 
theologians  and  Scriptural  commentators  praised  it  to  the  skies. 
Large  sums  were  spent  for  early  copies.  The  numbers  sold  at  the 
beginning  were  enormous.  Every  adventitious  aid  possible  was  given 
to  the  sale, and  the  markets  were  bulled  ecclesiastical  ly .  The  gudgeons 
were  baited  with  an  edition  without  a  hell,  and  the  new  orthodox 
revolution,  as  far  as  any  sort  of  an  insight  could  be  got  from  the  sur- 
face, was  an  accomplished  fact. 

Beneath  the  surface,  however,  the  revolution  did  not  revolution- 
ize. The  established  Church  of  England  never  would  and  never  has 
approved  of  it  synodically,  although  it  demanded  the  translation  the 
longest  and  loudest.  No  other  Protestant  denomination  ever  offi- 
cially made  use  of  it  in  its  churches  and  Sunday-schools.  The 
Catholics  would  not  touch  it  under  any  circumstances.  Families 
proscribed  it.  Writers  and  speakers,  lay  or  clerical,  so  scorned  it 
that  they  would  not  quote  from  it.  Tabooed,  spurned,  a  failure 
from  the  beginning,  it  has  now  passed  almost  completely  out  of 
sight  and  out  of  mind. 

And  what  is  the  reason  for  it  all?  Mr.  John  Fulton  attempts  to 
give  the  reason  in  the  June  number  of  "The  Forum."  He  says  in 
substance  that  top  many  changes  were  introduced  to  suit  some  and 
not  enough  to  suit  others.  He  also  thinks  that  the  poetry  of  many- 
passages  was  impaired  by  giving  them  a  too  literal  translation.  A 
certain  degree  of  obscurity  serves  to  give  a  charm  to  the  expression 
of  poetical  sentiments.  No  one  is  pleased  with  a  likeness  of  a  person 
made  by  measuring  his  features,  and  reducing  them  to  a  certain 
scale,  no  matter  how  attractive  they  may  have  been  or  are. 

Mr.  John  Fulton  does  not  go  deep  enough.  He  does  not  get 
down  to  the  real  bone  and  sinew  of  the  subject.  The  translated 
New  Testament,  or  rather  the  revised  edition  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, was  the  work  of  a  lot  of  intellectual  dudes.  They  refined 
away  poetry,  pathos,  rugged  Saxon,  quaint  forms  of  express- 
ion, old  landmarks,  verses  that  had  been  lived  and  died  by  for 
centuries,  old  texts,  old  promises  and  old  prophecies.  One  thing 
the  people  as  a  mass  will  never  permit  to  have  taken  away  from 
them,  and  that  is  the  old-fashioned  Bible.  They  never  asked^  for 
any  revision.  They  never  for  a  moment  considered  that  a  revision 
was  necessary . 

The  old 'King  James  version  was  venerated.  Since  its  publi- 
cation it  has  been  a  household  book,  the  one  sacred  record  of  the 
births,  marriages  and  deaths  in  a  family  for  a  generation.  Its 
teachings  had  brought  solace  in  sorrow,  surcease  in  pain,  comfort 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  149 

in  affliction,  support  in  misfortune,  ease  in  torment,  light  in  dark- 
ness, and  better  than  all,  something  when  the  final  summons  came 
that  made  it  less  dreadful  to  go  down  into  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
and  cross  over  that  wonderful  river,  which  in  all  lands  and  in  all 
tongues  has  been  called  the  river  of  death. 

We  do  not  say  anything  about  the  admirable  quality  of  the 
scholarship  manifested  in  the  version  of  the  New  Testament,  for  no 
doubt  that  was  very  high  and  perfect ;  but  the  new  translation  itself 
was  an  impossible  thing  from  the  start  if  the  intention  was  to  make 
it  root  out  the  version  that  it  pretended  to  correct  and  beautify. 
It  makes  no  difference  what  a  man  may  want  with  his  Bible,  how  he 
may  use  it,  how  explain,  how  expound,  how  interpret  it,  he  is  only 
solicitous  to  know  that  it  is  his  father's  Bible,  and  that  the  refiners, 
the  agnostics,  the  tweedle-dum  and  tweedle-dee  fellows  of  the  last 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  have  not  laid  their  hands  upon  that. 
If  that  is  intact  all  the  balance  is  easy.  The  denominational  pro- 
cession can  go  forward  thereafter  as  it  pleases.  Anchored  fast  to 
his  old-fashioned  Bible,  even  the  very  gates  of  Greek  shall  not  pre- 
vail against  his  old-fashioned  belief  in  fire  and  brimstone. 

THE  GERMAN  SUCCESSION. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  June  14, 1887.] 

If  the  Crown  Prince  of  Germany  is  at  all  superstitious — and  most 
thorough  soldiers  are — and  if  he  reads  half  the  occult  stories  told 
about  him,  and  half  the  predictions  made  as  to  what  his  fate  is  likely 
soon  to  be,  the  chances  would  be  good  to  send  him  to  a  premature 
grave  through  sheer  nervous  irritation  and  worriment. 

First,  when  his  father  was  quite  a  young  man,  unmarried  and 
sowing  his  wild  oats  plentifully,  a  gypsy  told  his  fortune.  He  was 
to  be  king  and  wear  three  crowns.  He  was  to  have  a  male  heir,  but 
the  heir  was  not  to  succeed  him. 

Later  on  the  young  man  married,  and  was  soon  made  king  of 
Prussia.  Afterward  of  Hanover,  then  of  all  Germany.  Here  was  the 
three  crowns  the  gypsy  predicted.  Still  later  on,  and  yet  a  little  while 
before  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  the  Emperor  William  again  had 
his  fortune  told.  Another  gypsy  cast  his  horoscope.  He  would 
live,  the  old  Zingaree  said,  until  his  ninety-second  year,  and  that 
when  he  died  he  would  bs  succeeded,  not  by  his  son,  but  by  his 
grandson.  The  son  would  die  before  his  father.  This  son  is  the 
present  Crown  Prince,  whose  life  even  at  this  moment  is  in  immi- 
nent peril.  The  physicians  in  attendance  upon  him — and  he  has 
some  that  have  a  world-wide  celebrity — have  not  }7et  determined 
what  to  call  the  morbid  growth  in  his  throat.  If  it  is  cancerous, 
like  General  Grant's,  no  power  short  of  the  Lord  Almighty  can  save 
him  from  a  speedy  death. 

The  old  Emperor  William,  his  father,  recalling  the  two  gypsy 
prophecies,  is  reported  as  being  firmly  of  the  belief  that  it  is  cancer, 
and  that  his  son  and  heir  will  die  within  the  year. 

Then  again  the  weird,  the  haunting,  the  evil-foreboding  White 
Lady  has  been  seen  again  at  the  Berlin  palace.  She  was  never 
known  to  appear  except  to  indicate  some  sudden  calamity  to  the 
house  of  Hohenzollern — most  generally  death.  Since  the  serious 
illness  of  the  Crown  Prince  the  fact  seems  to  be  pretty  well  authen- 
ticated that  she  has  been  seen  twice,  and  each  time  with  a  look  of 
terror  and  anguish  on  her  face.  She  first  made  her  appearance  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  the  Emperor's  mother— the  beautiful,  the  unfortu- 


150  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

nate  and  the  broken-hearted  Louise — and  has  been  part  of  the 
imperial  household  ever  since.  Does  her  last  visit  bode  evil  to  the 
Crown  Prince?  Who  knows? 

A  NEW  REVISION  OF  THE  BIBLE. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  23,  1887.] 

A  brief  cable  dispatch  announced  the  other  day  the  fact  that 
quite  a  number  of  denominational  people,  whatever  that  may  mean, 
had  met  in  London  and  discussed  freely  the  ways  and  means  of  pre- 
paring another  translation  of  the  Bible.  They  adjourned  to  meet 
again  shortly. 

Make  it,  gentlemen — make  it  by  all  means.  Rub  up  your 
Hebrew  and  your  Greek.  Get  quickly  at  your  roots,  your  verbsand 
your  conjugations.  Print  a  plentiful  supply.  Go  upon  the  princi- 
ple that ' '  Mark  Twain"  did  when  dealing  with  the  lightning-rod 
man:  "  Certainly  I  will  take  a  rod,  ten,  fifteen,  fifty.  Put  half  a 
dozen  on  the  house,  twenty  on  the  barn;  put  them  everywhere.  One 
on  the  servant  girl,  one  on  the  cow,  six  on  the  woodshed  and  then 
come  back  to  me  for  further  orders.  Lightning-rods  are  great  things 
to  have  in  a  family." 

But,  seriously,  what  earthly  use  is  there  for  another  translation 
of  the  Bible?  The  last  one,  not  yet  four  years  old,  fell  still-born. 
A  few  cranks  discussed  it  pro  and  con,  and  then  it  dropped  out  of 
the  public  sight  forever.  Here  and  there  a  few  enthusiasts  pro- 
claimed it  from  the  housetops,  but  the  people  went  by  on  the 
other  side.  Once  in  a  while  a  sweet  geranium  leaf  of  a  youngster 
sought  to  open  with  it  his  first  call  to  preach,  but  his  congregation 
drew  the  line  at  sheol,  and  he  quickly  had  to  hunt  another  transla- 
tion considerably  more  ancient. 

People  are  afraid  of  new  Bibles.  Education  is  everything  in 
the  matter  of  faith.  Once  well  set  in  his  religious  ways  and  the 
average  man  or  woman  will  stick  at  the  crater  of  Vesuvius,  even 
though  an  eruption  is  off  only  the  distance  of  an  hour.  Habit  also 
fills  a  great  space.  To  be  able  to  find  certain  texts  at  the  places 
assigned  to  them  is  much  more  potential  than  to  be  able  to  interpret 
them.  People  cry  out  against  superstition,  but  it  has  been  one  of 
Christianity's  handmaidens.  It  has  done  a  powerful  sight  of  good 
and  a  powerful  sight  of  harm,  but  its  good  deeds  are  legion  as  to 
one  bad  one.  So,  also,  with  Christianity  itself.  About  the  old 
Bible  there  is  a  sort  of  superstition  that  enshrines  it  and  makes  it 
invincible.  Of  course  many  things  enter  into  the  superstition  to 
harden  and  crystallize  it,  but  it  exists  and  can  not  be  cast  aside  or 
ignored,  hence  the  folly  of  another  translation  no  matter  how  per- 
fect of  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

THE  REVISED  BIBLE. 

[Kansas  City  Times ,  July,  1888.] 

The  English  publishers  of  the  revised  edition  of  the  Bible, 
especially  the  revised  New  Testament,  complain  very  much  that  the 
venture,  in  a  business  point  of  view,  is  a  dead  failure.  There  is  no 
demand  for  this  revised  Bible,  either  in  part  or  in  whole.  Much 
money  has  already  been  lost,  they  say,  more  will  be  lost,  and  they 
profess  not  to  be  able  to  understand  why  the  sales  are  not  larger 
and  the  profits  more  reassuring. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  151 

A  blind  man  might  see  why.  The  masses  of  the  people  do 
not  want  the  revised  Bible,  will  not  have  it,  will  not  buy  it,  have  no 
faith  in  it,  no  respect  for  it,  no  tolerance  for  it — aye,  for  it,  in  fact, 
they  have  only  supreme  contempt  and  bitter  mockery. 

With  every  human  creed,  belief,  or  spiritual  profession  there 
always  goes  a  certain  amount  of  superstition.  It  is  not  the  super- 
stition of  ignorance.  It  is  not  the  creed  superstition  which  leads 
to  violence,  bloodshed  and  murder.  It  is  not  the  fanatical  super- 
stition which  takes  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  crucifix  in  the 
other.  It  is  not  the  proselyting  superstition  which  mistakes  the 
shadow  for  the  substance,  and  seeks  to  bring  about  universal 
brotherhood  by  extirpating  all  freedom  of  thought  and  independ- 
ence of  action.  It  is  rather  the  sentimental  superstition  which 
believes  old  things  to  be  better  than  new;  the  faith  of  the  old  days 
more  holy  than  the  faith  of  the  new;  the  old  ideas  of  futurity 
more  reverent  than  the  new  agnosticism,  which  does  not  know;  the 
old  Bible,  as  pur  fathers  taught  it,  more  sacred  than  anything 
a  broader  learning  can  fashion,  or  a  higher  education  make  more 
pliable  to  modern  thought  and  insipid  forms  of  expression. 

Especially  does  the  unvexed  and  unexpurgated  Bible  take  hold 
of  the  human  imagination  and  do  with  it  as  it  pleases.  It  has  been 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation.  The  family's  genea- 
logical tree  has  taken  root  thee.  In  sunshine  it  has  sung  praises  to 
the  Lord;  in  shadow  it  has  poured  ointment  into  the  hurts  and  tem- 
pered the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb.  Birth  saw  its  precious  depository 
busy  with  the  record,  and  death  knew  that  however  the  stealth  of  its 
bereavements,  something  would  be  writ  to  tell  of  what  had  been 
given  and  what  had  been  taken  away. 

And  then  what  delightful  memories  of  childhood  cluster  about 
the  old  Bible.  Call  it  the  King  James  version,  or  the  Dou ay  ver- 
sion, or  whatever  other  version  you  please,  so  only  it  is  the  old  Bible, 
to  childhood  it  is  a  sentient  thing.  It  has  life  and  breath  and 
speech  and  motion.  For  every  doubt  it  has  an  explanation,  and  for 
every  wound  a  Gilead  full  of  balm.  Its  promises  are  articulate,  and 
it  soothes  as  it  promises.  To  doubt  its  inspiration  in  those  halcyon 
days  would  have  been  to  doubt  a  father's  care  or  a  mother's  tender- 
ness. Somehow,  no  matter  how,  it  grew  about  the  heart  and 
became  chief  among  its  holy  household  gods.  Every  line  in  it  was 
taken  literally,  interpreted  literally,  and  acted  upon  literally. 
It  provided  for  a  future.  It  robbed  death  of  the  severity  of 
its  sting;  it  denied  to  the  grave  the  exultation  of  its  victory. 
As  one  grew  older  it  took  upon  itself  shape  after  shape  that 
had  not  before  been  discovered,  because  to  be  more  and  more  of  a 
necessity.  It  was  historical,  theological,  polemical,  scientific, 
hygienic,  geological  and  prophetic.  It  was  a  single  volume  and  a 
library.  Day  after  day  it  gathered  unto  itself  new  strength;  reading 
after  reading  it  revealed  unto  the  student  new  beauties  of  thought 
and  new  avenues  of  investigation.  All  in  all,  it  was  to  him  the  most 
satisfying  book  ever  printed,  and  so  when  he  went  out  into  the  world 
for  himself,  along  with  the  faces  of  the  other  near  ones  and  dear 
ones,  there  went  also  the  form  and  the  face  of  the  idolize  d  old 
family  Bible. 

No  wonder,  therefore,  that  the  work  which  would  cut  and  carve 
this  precious  instrument  is  almost  universally  looked  upon  as  sacri- 
legious work,  receiving  bitter  denunciations  instead  of  indorsment, 
or  so  completely  ignored  as  to  entail  heavy  financial  losses  upon 
those  who,  through  much  learning,  vainly  imagined  that  they  could 
saturate  the  Word  of  God  with  their  Greek  and  Hebrew  refinements 


152  JOHN   NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

and  force  it  upon  the  recognition  of  those  who  yet  believe  in  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Scriptures- 

MARRIAGE  OF  CAPTAIN  COLLINS. 

[Kansas  City  Times  August,  1888.] 

So  this  wary  old  campaigner  has  been  captured  at  last.  So  the 
old  veteran  battery  commander,  who  never  lost  a  gun  in  all  the  four 
years'  war,  in  one  swift  moment  lost  both  his  heart  and  whatever 
may  be  looked  upon  as  the  blessedness  of  single  life.  So  this  splen- 
did cannoneer,  -whom  General  Jo  Shelby  took  as  a  boy  and  left  as  a 
giant,  has  become  as  pliant  as  a  woman's  necklace  in  as  tender  a  pair 
of  hands  as  ever  threaded  the  strands  of  life  with  the  golden  beads  of 
purity  and  devotion.  Ah!  love!  love! 

There  are  thousands  of  the  comrades  of  Captain  Collins  thipday 
all  over  Arkansas,  Texas  and  Missouri  who  will  rejoice  that  such  a 
destiny  has  come  at  last  to  one  who  has  deserved  so  much  at  the 
hands  of  fortune — deserved  so  much  because  of  truth,  courage,  gen- 
erous manhood,  steadfastness  to  friendship,  perfect  honor  and  a 
faith  that  will  fail  not  till  the  end. 

Then  if  these  old  comrades  of  his  could  have  seen  his  beautiful 
bride — so  modest,  so  gentle,  so  refined,  the  dew  of  the  morning  of 
her  young  life  yet  glistening  upon  the  roses  in  her  cheeks,  their  con- 
gratulations would  have  been  sent  up  to  him  twice,  once  because  of 
the  resolution  which  made  him  draw  near  to  such  a  shrine  to  offer 
incense,  and  once  because  the  priestess  who  presided  there  had  so 
many  of  the  qualities  of  splendid  American  womanhood  as  to  fit  her 
perfectly  for  adoration. 

And  now  the  two  go  out  into  the  world  hand  in  hand  together. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  dark  sometimes.  Perhaps  in  some  mornings  no 
birds  may  be  heard  to  sing.  Perhaps  fate's  hand  may  now  and  then 
smite  hard  -and  smite  the  things  which  are  tenderest.  Perhaps 
across  the  home  threshold  some  shadows  may  fall  which  can  be 
lifted  never  more  until  the  Hght  that  never  was  on  shore  or  sea  lift 
them  beyond  the  wonderful  river;  but  stand  up,  old  comrade,  ten- 
der and  true.  You  are  the  oak.  It  is  for  you  to  sit  sentinel  by  the 
hearthstone,  for  you  to  make  holy  with  devotion  the  perfect  shelter 
of  the  roof -tree.  Everything  that  is  touching  in  woman's  confi- 
dence has  been  reposed  in  you.  The  perfect  purity  of  a  sinless  and 
stainless  life  is  yours  for  the  cherishing.  The  sunhas  risen  on  this 
newer  and  fuller  existence,  and  that  journey  has  been  entered  upon 
which  must  go  forward  to  its  final  abiding  place  of  domestic  happi- 
ness. Since  it  has  been  begun,  may  the  good  God  send  to  bless 
it  those  bountiful  things  which  make  the  flowers  to  bloom  for  you, 
and  the  green  sward  to  be  gracious  for  your  feet,  and  soft  winds  to 
blow  for  you,  and  a  perfect  possession  to  come  unto  you,  as  the 
gentle  night-dews  come  to  a  summer's  hill. 

THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  NOYEL. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  October,  1888.] 

The  Boston  Herald  asks  with  more  plaintiveness  than  the  sub- 
ject demands,  it  seems  to  us,  when  the  great  American  novel  may 
be  expected.  Before  such  a  question  could  be  answered  one  would 
have  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  great  American  novel.  If 
it  is  to  be  a  "  Les  Miserables  "  of  a  book,  the  answer  would  be  easy, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  153 

for  it  would  consist  of  the  single  word  never;  but  until  a  book  in 
some  degree  approaching  this  is  produced  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
it  is  not  worth  while  to  talk  about  any  really  distinctive  or  represen- 
tative work  of  American  fiction. 

The  American  novels,  now  being  printed  by  the  carload  and 
scattered  broadcast  over  the  country,  furnish  the  best  possible  evi- 
dence that  the  Herald's  question  must  remain  in  abeyance  for  a 
satisfactory  answer  if  not  for  a  whole  century  at  least  for  the  half 
of  one.  There  never  was  such  a  ruck  of  simper,  insanity  and  gush. 
There  was  never  such  a  reign  of  platitude,  idiocy  and  drivel.  No 
power  anywhere.  No  imagination.  No  hand  that  can  paint  a 
picture  to  interest,  much  less  to  haunt  one.  Nothing  that  forces  a 
sigh,  much  less  a  shudder.  Nothing  that  casts  athwart  the  sky  of 
a  perfect  imbecility  a  single  lurid  flash  to  tell  that  the  sun  of  genius 
is  about  to  lift  itself  above  the  horizon. 

The  old  novels,  by  far  the  best  ever  published  in  this  country, 
are  no  longer  read.  Who  to-day  sets  any  store  by  James  Fenimore 
Cooper  ?  and  yet  he  was  as  much  of  an  American  as  the  American 
eagle.  The  forests  at  his  touch  took  any  hue  or  color.  They  were 
green  like  green  seas,  or  desolate  like  snow  wastes  in  December. 
They  were  jocund  with  bird  songs,  or  hushed  as  though  the  vast 
presence  of  the  Angel  of  Silence  brooded  in  all  their  branches.  He 
put  his  hand  upon  the  streams  and,  as  they  hastened  on  to  the 
sea,  they  had  a  speech  which  he  interpreted.  He  dramatized  the 
wigwam  and  the  Indian,  the  trapper  and  the  scout,  and  gave  to 
the  civilization  of  the  border  the  terse,  picturesque  form  of  expres- 
sion which  even  to  this  day,  dialect  though  it  be,  still  retains  all 
of  its  pathos  and  intensity.  His  pictures  of  pioneer  life  were 
perfect.  The  hunter,  the  trapper,  the  scout,  the  guide,  the  red 
warrior,  the  warpath,  the  block-house,  the  ambushment,  the  butch- 
ery— they  are  as  well  recognized  now  as  portrayed  by  this  wiz- 
ard as  they  were  in  the  days  when  Montcalm  pitched  his  marquee 
in  front  of  Fort  William  Henry,  and  poor  old  Munro,  heroic  Scotch- 
man though  he  was,  surrendered  at  last  to  French  finesse  and 
Indian  deviltry. 

But  Cooper  is  forgotten.  And  so  is  Poe.  And  Hawthorne  will 
be  by  and  by.  Namby-pamby  ism  is  the  standard.  Any  situation 
which  would  make  a  mouse  squeak  is  eliminated  from  all  latter-day 
American  novels.  The  end  is  everything,  the  denouement  as  the 
chirrupers  like  to  call  it.  That  mustbe  a  marriage,  everybody  happy, 
the  hero  getting  a  medicine  chest,  and  a  copy  of  Godey's Lady's  Book 
for  a  wife,  and  the  heroine  .cetting  one  of  Sam  Jones'  spider-legged 
dudes  and  a  walking  stick  for  a  husband.  Hysteria  and  hair-pin. 
The  bustle  and  the  pad.  Tootsy-wootsy  and  baby -boy.  Lord  of 
Israel !  what  a  race  of  chimpanzees  would  be  born  into  the  world 
if  these  modern  American  novelists  could  have  the  making  of  its 
procreators. 

Coming  like  the  white  butterflies  in  June,  and  going  like  the 
white  caterpillars  in  November,  there  is  one  funny  sort  of  a  man 
called  Henry  James,  an  American  in  the  spring  and  an  Englishman 
in  the  fall,  who  has  had  the  audacity  to  declare  that  he  is  the  great 
American  novelist.  Why,  he  isn't  a  novelist  of  any  kind,  let  alone 
an  American  novelist.  If  truth  had  ever  had  the  fashioning  of  a 
nora  de  plume  for  him  it  would  have  been  insipidity.  His  women 
wheeze  like  people  with  the  phthisic.  Now  and  then  he  has  a  stat- 
uesque one,  and  she  faints  at  the  sight  of  a  Japanese  fan.  Skilled 
in  essences,  and  with  a  smelling  bottle  always  handy,  he  will  go 
into  a  drawing  room  and  have  four  or  five  on  the  floor  at  once,  some 


154  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

with  their  bodies  unlaced  and  some  in  hysterics.  His  men  are  my 
Lord  Fitznoodle,  and  my  Count  Nonentity.  He  an  American  novel- 
ist !  Henry  James  the  great  American  novelist !  Yes,  just  about 
as  much  as  the  pine  cone  on  the  ground  is  the  gigantic  pine  tree. 

If  the  Boston  Herald  is  really  in  distress  for  a  day  to  come  when 
that  mythical  thing,  the  great  American  novel,  is  to  be  born,  it  had 
just  as  well  begin  now  to  tear  its  hair  and  rend  its  garments.  Come 
back  again,  say  at  the  end  of  another  century.  The  land  is  too  new. 
The  standard  of  taste  is  too  low.  There  is  too  much  shoddy  affec- 
tation, and  veneering  to  the  front.  The  genius  of  the  age  lies  in 
money  getting  and  money  grabbing.  The  "yaller"  covers  have  the 
boom.  Iron  is  king.  Wait  for  more  refinement,  luxury  and  culti- 
vation. Wait  for  the  moccasin  tracks  to  be  obliterated.  And  while 
you  are  about  it,  our  dear  contemporaries,  just  wait  for  the  Millen- 
nium. 

OUIDA  AND  ZOLA. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  1889.] 

There  is  a  literary  club  in  Boston  composed  entirely  of  women, 
Its  name  is  the  "  Analytical,"  and  the  last  subject  brought  before  it 
for  discussion  was  rather  a  peculiar  one,  to  speak  modestly,  being 
this:  "As  between  Ouida  and  Zola,  which  •  of  the  two  is  the  most 
immoral?" 

It  is  not  recorded  what  the  verdict  was,  if  a  verdict  was  indeed 
reached;  but  the  debate,  in  the  event  that  it  took  a  wide  range,  must 
have  been  exceedingly  bizarre  and  somewhat  interesting. 

To  settle  the  question  of  immorality  between  two  such  authors, 
not  a  few  edged  tools  would  have  to  be  handled.  A  spade  would 
have  to  be  called  a  spade  most  emphatically.  Vigorous  English 
would  have  to  come  in  all  along  the  line  in"no  uncertain  manner. 
Comparisons  would  have  to  be  made  by  direct  and  apropos  quota- 
tions. No  mere  ipse  dixit  in  thatassembly  would  have  had  the  toler- 
ance of  a  moment.  There  were  the  models,  stripped  from  necklace 
to  satin  slipper,  and  there  were  the  judges,  impassible  as  Plymouth 
Rock,  taking  note  of  each  development. 

Between  the  two  authors  thus  discussed  the  immorality  of 
each — and  of  course  we  only  refer  to  their  writings — differs  merely 
in  the  way  it  is  presented.  Ouida's  immorality  is  perfumed, 
essenced,  plumed,  scarfed,  jeweled,  full  of  poetry  and  full  of 
romance  Zola's  is  brutal,  indiscriminate  and  low-bred.  .Ouida  is 
always  refined,  picturesque  and  suggestive;  Zola  lays  about  him  with 
a  club.  Ouida  builds  palaces  for  her  Phrynes;  Zola  is  content  with 
a  rookery.  Ouida  crowns  vice  with  flowers  and  decorates  it  with 
diamonds;  Zola  is  satisfied  with  rags  and  tatters.  Ouida  goes  many 
times  to  mass  and  sometimes  to  confession;  Zola  sneers  alike  at  God 
and  devil.  Ouida  trips  daintily  to  trystings,  the  red  in  her  cheeks 
and  wind  in  her  hair;  Zola  in  great  muddy  boots  that  smell  of  the 
stable.  Ouida's  approach  is  heralded  by  the  swish  of  silk  and  the 
odor  of  violets;  Zola's  by  the  stumblings  of  the  drunkard  and  the 
peculiarflavor  of  absinthe  and  brandy.  Ouida  gilds  everything — 
touches  the  cheeks  with  rouge  and  the  eyes  with  henna;  Zola  does 
not  even  use  soap  and  water.  Ouida  is  luxury,  sensuousness,  down, 
ermine,  rare  wines,  passionate  wooings  and  passionate  embraces; 
Zola  is  mechanical  lust  put  together  like  a  machine  and  quite  as 
soulless.  Ouida's  assignations  have  in  them  the  singing  of  birds, 
and  the  leaping  of  sword-blades;  Zola's  the  shivering  of  plassps  in 
tavern  brawls  and  the  bacchanalian  shouts  of  vulgar  revelers.  Ouida 


MISCELLANEOUS  WHITINGS.  155 

quiets  conscience,  weakens  resolution,  puts  a  silken  scarf  over  the 
eyes  of  purity,  baits  her  traps  with  bait  from  a  king's  table,  makes 
a  tiuce  with  continence,  gives  virtue  a  plenary  indulgence,  and  lifts 
constantly  a  curtain  for  glimpses  of  Paradise;  Zola  thrusts  rudely 
into  the  hand  a  printed  bill  of  fare  that  orders  may  be  issued 
according  to  appetite.  Ouida  appeals  to  the  spirit;  Zola  to  the  flesh. 
The  immorality  of  the  one  has  over  it  always  something  of  a  gar- 
ment, transparent  though  it  may  be  and  of  the  color  of  flesh;  Zola 
does  not  even  put  on  a  fig  leaf  about  the  loins. 

These,  therefore,  are  the  two  styles  of  immorality  which  the 
fair  ladies  of  the  analytical  club  no  doubt  discussed  in  all  the  ins 
and  outs  and  ramifications  of  their  putrescence  and  abomination. 
As  none  but  women  were  present  this  discussion  in  all  probability 
took  a  wide  range  and  license,  although  we  are  of  the  opinion  that 
Ouida  had  the  most  votes. 

What  next? 

IS  DEATH  ALL? 

[Kansas  City  Times.] 

There  come  up  in  connection  with  Colonel  Ingersoll's  eulogy 
delivered  upon  the  life  and  character  of  Roscoe  Conkling  some 
serious  thoughts.  To  Ingersoll  he  was  a  paladin.  Yes,  and  to  many 
another  besides  Ingersoll.  He  is  desribed  by  the  orator  as  being 
brave,  true,  clean,  immovable  in  his  friendships,  and  unalterable  in 
his  love.  The  country  knew  that  long  ago.  We  put  aside  all  of 
Ingersoll's  slush,  wherein  the  bloody  shirt  and  abolitionism  are 
mixed  in  equal  proportions,  and  come  directly  to  the  question: 
Where,  beyond  the  grave,  is  the  Pantheon  for  such  a  hero? 

Take  this  great  American  as  he  is  put  upon  Ingersoll's  canvas. 
Look  at  his  face,  his  eyes,  his  pose,  his  stature  and  his  whole  com- 
manding presence  in  every  feature  and  aspect.  Is  no  soul  there? 
If  there  is  a  soul,  who  gave  it?  Into  whose  hands  does  it  return? 
Is  it  annihilation?  Do  men  like  Napoleon,  Caesar,  Hannibal,  Victor 
Hugo  and  a  whole  mighty  array  of  other  giants  disappear  into  noth- 
ingness? 

It  can  not  be.  It  is  against  reason,  common  sense,  revealed 
religion,  the  Bible,  the  agony  in  the  garden,  the  torture  on  the  cross. 
It  is  also  against  human  nature.  Man,  in  any  state,  is  supremely 
selfish.  He  wants  a  hereafter.  He  wants  another  world  when  he 
gets  old,  a  place  to  lie  down,  to  sleep,  perhaps  to  dream.  Life's 
battle  may  have  borne  against  him  heavily.  Bosoms — despite  all 
love,  and  courage,  and  watchfulness,  and  tenderness — have  been 
stricken  home  at  his  side.  He  knows  where  his  graves  are.  The 
dew  falls  upon  them  like  a  benediction.  The  birds  sing  above  them 
as  they  do  when  they  find  sweet  seed  in  the  summer  grasses.  He  is 
worn  now,  and  feeble  and  far  spent.  He  dies,  and  Ingersoll  says 
that  death  is  the  last  of  him.  He  turns  to  a  leaf,  a  sprout,  a  shrub, 
perhaps  a  four-leaf  clover,  perhaps  a  head  of  timothy,  it  may  be  one 
thing  or  it  may  be  another;  but,  whatever  it  is.  the  end  is  utter 
oblivion. 

It  is  against  every  selfish  instinct  of  man  that  such  a  fate  is 
desirable.  In  his  inner  being  there  is  a  constant  revolt  against  such 
abominable  paganism.  Indeed,  it  is  worse  than  paganism.  Pagan- 
ism did  have  its  altars,  its  shrines,  its  sacred  groves,  its  temples,  its 
vestal  virgins,  its  priests,  its  augurs,  its  elysian  fields,  its  gods,  its 
goddesses,  its  spirits  of  good  and  of  evil;  but  it  never  had  extinc- 
tion. Instead,  it  had  sinners  immortal  in  their  capacity  to  suffer 


156  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

and  endure.  It  had  Pluto  and  Prometheus;  it  had  Proserpine  and 
Acteon;  it  had  Midas  and  Tantalus ;  it  had  the  Furies  and  the 
Eumenides,  but  its  future  was  never  without  a  resurrection.  That 
has  remained  for  the  superior  development  of  the  nineteenth 
century — steam  everywhere;  electricity  everywhere;  oceans  speaking 
to  the  land  through  great  coils  of  wires  that  even  teach  the  fishes  a 
speech,  and  cause  the  great  yet  invisible  monsters  of  the  deep  to 
send  forth  their  avants  courier,  their  krakens,  their  sea  serpents, 
their  devils  of  indescribable  things  which  have  as  many  arms  as  a 
wheel  has  spokes,  and  in  each  arm  the  strength  of  a  screw- 
propeller — send  them  forth  to  know  all  the  meaning  of  the 
new  things  men  have  invented  who  are  totally  without  souls,  and 
yet  with  an  intelligence  equal  to  the  angels.  In  fact,  this  wonder- 
ful period  in  the  life  of  mankind  has  waited  for  Robert  G.  Ingersoll. 
It  may  be  all  as  he  says,  but  he  has  put  his  race  at  a  terrible  dis- 
advantage. He  has  made  of  them  mummies,  monkeys  and  blocks 
of  wood.  As  far  as  he  could  he  has  burned  out  the  eyes  of  faith. 
He  has  taken  from  cripples,  paralytics  and  deformed  people  what 
little  staff  and  script  they  had  for  this  unknown  journey,  creeping 
on  apace  and  making  fiercer  and  fiercer  inroads  at  every  returning 
season.  He  has  made  of  the  holy  mysteries  things  to  deride,  ridi- 
cule, spit  on,  daub  with  mud,  dress  in  rags  and  scarify  like  lepers. 
And  then  to  think  that  he  had  the  audacity  to  deliver  a  eulogy  on 
Roscoe  Conkling.  Sacrilege!  Sacrilege!  Sacrilege! 

THE  NEW  YEAR. 

To  all  things  there  must  come  a  past — to  those  who  sin  and 
love  and  suffer  and  repent,  and  who  go  on  through  life  and  make 
no  prayer  or  moan,  it  is  well,  in  the  infinite  wisdom  of  God,  that 
there  is  a  past.  The  heart  buries  its  treasures  there.  It  is  full  of 
sad ,  sweet  faces  lying  asleep  in  the  sepulchres,  full  of ' '  broken  vows 
and  pieces  of  rings. "  There,  when  life  was  at  its  flood  and  the  world 
full  of  all  glad  and  green-growingthings,  it  held  so  many  memories 
that  came  only  when  youth  and  hope  were  strong  and  rare,  like 
winsome  lock  of  hair,  some  garment  of  spice-smell  or  sky-color, 
some  apple-tree  white  and  pink  with  blossoms,  some  tune  that  came 
in  with  the  sunset  and  lingered  until  the  night  had  fallen,  some 
snowy  tents  of  the  dogwood  perched  beyond  the  early  green  of 
meadows  washed  with  dew  and  wiped  with  the  moonshine,  some  twi- 
light trysting  by  the  garden-gate,  the  moon  bending  low  in  the 
West  and  the  twilight  busy  with  the  lilacs,  some  lapsing  flow  of 
running  water  where  the  tree-tops  were  jubilant  with  nests  and 
tremulous  with  many  wings — something  that  came  only  in  the  first 
spring-time  and  affluence  of  life,  and  that  lingers  until  the  stars 
have  faded  one  by  one,  and  the  sounds  are  heard  of  the  waves  of 
the  wonderful  river. 

The  new  year  comes,  however,  and  behind  it  are  all  the  old  and 
crowded  years,  some  of  them  glad  as  with  sunshine,  and  some  of 
them  sorrowful  as  with  tears.  It  is  best  neither  to  remember  nor 
forget.  Let  the  past  lie  out  peacefully  among  its  sepulchers  and  its 
shadows,  and  let  the  present  be  all  our  own.  There  are  rugged  bat- 
tles yet  to  fight,  there  are  triumphs  yet  in  store,  there  is  work  for  all 
who  know  the  meaning  of  that  simple  word  duty,  there  are  fields  to 
cultivate,  consecrated  efforts  to  put  forth,  and  Illustrious  examples 
to  set  for  all  the  future.  Nothing  is  lost  or  thrown  away.  Poor 
finite  hearts  that  yearn,  and  doubt,  and  stand  aside  abashed  as  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  157 

great  cavalcade  of  high  deeds  and  heroic  actions  go  by,  have  only 
need  to  lift  themselves  up  and  become  as  giants  in  the  march  of  prog- 
ress. It  will  be  dark  many  times,  and  the  winds  will  blow  cold, 
and  the  clouds  will  gather;  but  after  the  midnight  the  morning,  anoV 
after  the  cold,  gray  dawn  in  the  east,  the  blue  sky  filled  with  its  sun- 
shine and  its  bountiful  and  temperate  air. 

WHOSE  FAULT  IS  IT  2 

In  a  recent  discourse  the  Rev.  J.  P.  Newman  is  reported  to  have 
said,  in  referring  to  the  Chicago  anarchists :  The  cry  goes  up  to-day 
for  absolute  liberty,  destroy  the  Bible,  tear  down  the  churches, 
exile  the  pastors,  abolish  the  Sabbath.  Could  any  American  citizen 
have  anticipated  ten  years  ago  such  an  advance  ?  Would  any 
American  citizen  ten  years  ago  have  foretold  that  to-day  men  call- 
ing themselves  good  citizens  and  Christians  would  sign  and  circulate 
a  petition  for  the  pardon  of  those  whose  hands  are  red  with  the 
blood  of  the  keepers  of  the  peace  and  defenders  of  the  public  safety  ? 
What  is  back  of  this  anarchy  ?  This  foul,  revolutionary  movement 
of  miserable,  cowardly  wretches,  who  ought  to  have  been  hung  long 
ago  ?  Liberty  means  obedience  to  law,  absolute  liberty  has  no  place 
in  this  land,  and  he  who  comes  to  us  from  abroad  should  under- 
stand that  for  those  who  yell  for  absolute  liberty  and  its  practices, 
we  have  the  dungeon,  the  gallows,  or  exile. 

This  is  all  very  well  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  has  merely  skimmed 
the  surface  of  the  evil  which  afflicts  the  country.  Who  pities  those 
dynamiters  of  Chicago?  Who  is  lifting  a  hand  to  save  them  from 
the  rope  except  those  who  are  but  little  better  than  they?  Dr. 
Newman  need  not  have  belabored  these  straw  men  so  furiously. 
They  are  the  mere  outgrowth  of  a  poison  that  lies  deeper;  that 
has  been  at  work  for  thrice  ten  years;  that  is  as  difficult  to  eradi- 
cate as  leprosy;  that  the  pulpit  has  had  as  much  to  do  in  making 
deadly  as  a  morass  has  in  breeding  malaria;  that  is  becoming  more 
intense  every  day,  more  destructive  and  more  impervious  to  medi- 
cament— we  mean  the  poison  of  infidelity. 

The  gravitation  toward  a  religion  that  has  neither  a  Bible  nor 
a  Savior  has  been  going  on  steadily  in  the  United  States  for  thirty 
years.  It  began  when  the  New  Testament  was  prostituted  by  the 
elimination  of  an  actual  devil  and  a  real  hell.  It  began  when  a 
reign  of  sensationalism  set  in,  and  when  texts  were  not  taken  from 
the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  from  the  most  abnormal  and  outrageous 
events  of  everyday  society,  the  more  fashionable  the  better  and  the 
more  given  over  to  worldliness  and  display. 

What  has  become  of  the  old-fashioned  orthodoxy?  What  of 
a  faith  that  once  had  to  be  manifested  by  works?  What  of  Bible 
verses  and  Bible  expoundings?  What  of  the  whole  congregation 
joining  in  old-fashioned  hymns,  sometimes  quaint  but  always 
full  of  that  kind  of  pathos  which  made  people  stronger  and  better 
for  the  singing?  What  of  the  lowly  meeting  houses,  with  wooden 
benches  and  uncarpeted  aisles? 

Fashion  has  killed  them  all.  Infidelity  has  done  its  work  all 
too  well,  bringing  to  aid  it  as  faithful  allies  agnosticism,  material- 
ism, atheism,  doubt,  questioning,  ridicule,  politics,  prohibition, 
the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil.  The  race  is  fast  becoming  one 
of  scoffers  and  unbelievers.  It  has  no  use  for  preachers  who  make 
violent  partisans  out  of  themselves,  and  go  about  mixing  in  every- 
thing that  belongs  to  the  ballot-box,  and  the  meetings.  Before  it 


158  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

will  listen  to  them  it  will  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  assume  an 
air  of  infidel  bravado  out  of  their  disgust  or  defiance.  Who  hears 
religion  preached  any  more  in  the  fashionable  churches?  It  has 
become  to  be  considered  a  species  of  anguish  to  call  Jesus  Christ 
any  longer  the  Son  of  God.  The  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  a 
myth  that  has  been  sent  to  keep  company  with  the  sea  serpent. 
The  whole  beautiful  and  appealing  plan  of  salvation,  made  touch- 
ing and  supremely  lovable  through  the  life,  the  teachings,  the  cruci- 
fixion, and  the  resurrection  of  an  immortal  sacrifice,  is  now  no 
more  accounted  of  than  the  bleeding  and  empty  skin  of  a  slaugh- 
tered bullock.  The  road  to  Heaven  has  been  made  musical  with 
resonant  organs  and  choirs  of  singing  people  who  sing  operatic  airs 
that  boldly  proclaim  the  green  room  and  ogle  the  can-can  not  a 
little  wantonly. 

And  then  the  texts.  Sermons  have  been  preached  on  base  ball, 
on  horse  racing,  on  watering  places,  on  battle  flags,  on  cipher  dis- 
patches, on  the  waltz,  on  victorious  armies,  on  the  navy  and  what 
it  did  in  the  war,  on  forty  acres  and  a  mnle,  on  Ingersoll,  a 
cart  load  or  two  on  Guiteau,  one  in  this  town  on  Jesse  James, 
quite  a  number  on  the  address  Ingalls  made  concerning  Ben  Hill, 
10,000  probably  on  Grant,  not  so  many  on  Garfield;  but  precious 
few  about  Jesus  Christ  and  Him  crucified. 

Nor  is  Dr.  J.  P.  Newman  any  better  than  a  good  many  others 
who  have  thus  made  the  pulpit  a  place  for  man  canonization  and  the 
church  a  place  for  man  idolatry.  He  has  preached  more  politics  to 
the  square  inch  of  brain  than  any  other  preacher  in  the  country. 
When  Grant  was  president  he  never  had  a  favorite  colt  to  chafe  its 
tail,  that  this  inspector  of  consulates  did  not  give  his  congregation 
a  discourse  on  the  misfortune.  Toady  always,  and  spread-eagle 
always,  is  it  any  wonder  that  such  so-called  expounders  of  the  gospel 
drive  men  in  multitudes  into  any  species  of  unbelief  whicn  will 
array  them  openly  against  these  charlatans  and  impostors? 

Socialism  is  accursed  of  God,  but  so  is  infidelity.  No  nation 
mentioned  yet  in  all  history  ever  prospered  a  single  hour  or  in  a 
single  undertaking  after  it  abandoned  the  simple  belief  and  faith  of 
its  fathers,  for -w ith  these  go  truth,  virtue,  honesty  and  patriotic 
manhood.  It  is  no  longer  capable  of  making  heroic  sacrifices.  It 
is  no  longer  fit  to  rise  up  against  adversity,  affliction  or  chastise- 
ment. Its  spiritual  torpor  is  complete,  and  it  is  physically  incapa- 
ble of  a  single  emotion.  There  are  many  instances  recorded  where 
the  pulpits  have  killed  liberty. 

GONE  DOWN  AT  SEA. 

The  blue  of  the  sky  and  the  blue  of  the  ocean  were  blended 
together  when  the  City  of  Boston  sailed  away  from  England  in  the 
springtime,  westward  bound.  It  is  winter  now,  and  snows  have 
fallen,  and  the  faces  of  all  the  seas  have  been  white  with  the  wrath 
and  the  pain  of  the  tempest,  but  never  more  forever  will  there  come 
up  from  the  great  deep  a  whisper  to  tell  where  the  brave  ship  went 
down.  Three  hundred  were  on  board.  Mothers  were  there  with 
their  children  newly  born;  maidens  were  there  upon  whose  fair 
head  shad  blown  the  pleasant  winds  of  France,  and  in  whose  eyes 
were  the  light  of  English  summers  ;  youth  stood  upon  the  prome- 
nade deck  looking  far  into  the  future,  with  hope  that  had  upon  its 
wings  the  morning  and  the  sunrise  ;  manhood's  stalwart  faith  gazed 
camly  on  the  azure  face  of  the  eternal  ocean,  and  listened  to  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  159 

voices  of  the  tide  as  one  hears  soft  music  in  a  dream  ;  beauty 
lingered  late  among  the  happy  hours  that  had  for  solace  merriment 
and  laughter  ;  and  all  the  stars  were  kind,  and  all  the  elfin  lights 
that  danced  along  the  deep  took  mermaid  shapes  and  whirled  and 
sported  round  the  ship  as  though  'twere  sailing  in  among  the  islands 
of  the  blessed.  Blithe  battle  blowing  all  about  the  sunny  slopes  of 
France,  and  in  amid  the  vine  leaves  and  the  vines  as  running  water, 
took  eyes  and  hearts  from  the  ocean  bird  sailing  grandly  on 
to  her  inarticulate  death.  Was  there  any  storm,  clothed  with 
the  wind  and  hurricane,  that  grappled  and  overthrew  the  ves- 
sel? Nobody  knows.  Did  the  fiery  lightning  run  all  along 
the  spars  and  light  the  sails  and  shrouds  and  hull  for  funeral  pyre? 
The  ebb  and  flow  of  moon-made  tides  carry  no  message  back  to 
either  shore.  Oh!  it  was  pitiful,  that  death — ''alone,  alone,  all 
alone — alone  on  the  wide,wide  sea."  Some  died  and  made  no  moan. 
Some  must  have  floated  with  drenched,  loose  arms  flung  wide  apart 
and  smiles  of  childhood  on  the  wan,  thin  faces.  Was  the  night 
brooding  upon  the  water,  moonless  and  starless?  Could  a  south 
wind  have  blown,  perfumed  with  land  odors,  only  to  bring  the 
skeleton  reaper  and  the  pitiless  storm?  What  said  all  the  beautiful 
maidens  in  death's  broken  and  touching  talk?  Were  not  the 
mother's  eyes  more  steadfast  than  any  there,  and  were  not  her  prayers 
more  holy  and  fervent  as  she  lifted  her  face  to  heaven — a  face 
that  bore  a  living  likeness  to  the  fair-haired  boy  in  tears  upon  her 
bosom?  Was  it  morning  when  the  good  ship  went  down,  and  had 
the  night,  like  a  corpse  abandoning  a  bier,  stolen  the  shroud  from 
the  face  of  the  ocean  ?  In  all  the  lost  three  hundred  was  there  one  to 
whom  death  came  as  a  benediction — one  that  smiled  sweetly  as  the 
angry,  crawling  waves  came  up  the  oaken  ribs,  and  murmured 
wearily  and  wistfully  to  ears  that  could  not  hear: 

"Fair  mother,  fed  with  the  lives  of  men, 
Thou  are  subtle  and  cruel  of  heart,  men  say; 
Thou  hast  taken,  and  shall  not  render  again; 
Thou  art  full  of  thy  dead,  and  cold  as  they; 
But  death  is  the  worst  that  comes  of  thee; 
Thou  art  fed  with  our  dead,  O  Mother,  O  sea, 
But  when  hast  thou  fed  on  our  hearts?  or  when, 
Having  given  us  love,  hast  thou  taken  away?" 

Oh,  but  nothing  mangles,  and  rends,  and  devours  like  the  sea. 
It  laughs  with  insatiable  lips  and  comes  to  its  prey  screened  by  the 
zephyrs  and  by  gracious  and  temperate  airs.  The  clouds  and  the 
waves  conspire.  There  is  a  gulf  in  the  sky  and  a  gulf  in  the  ocean, 
and  all  between  is  the  freighted  bark,  having  frail  things,  and  beau- 
tiful things  for  cargo  and  ballast,  run  from  billow  to  billow,  and  a 
great  noise  is  heard  as  of  agony  and  fear,  and  hard  bestead  and 
Eunted  like  a  wounded,  stricken  thing,  the  good  ship,  City  of  Bos- 
ton went  down  and  left  no  piece  of  wreck,  no  spar,  no  white  face 
swollen  with  the  sleep  of  death,  no  bonnie  tress  of  hair  coiled  about 
and  tangled  with  seaweed,  no  broken  and  battered  boat,  no  whisper 
in  wind  or  air  to  tell  how  the  wild  waves  went  over  all. 

There  are  hearts  yet  in  the  old  world  and  the  new  that  are  lis- 
tening for  the  signal  guns  which  tell  of  her  offing  truly  made  and 
her  anchors  fast  in  the  harbor  of  repose.  The  laughing  morning 
winds,  fed  with  the  dew  and  the  sunrise  have  tripped  over  the 
grave  of  the  wreck,  and  when  they  had  passed  the  sea  wore  its  placid 
smile,  and  there  were  no  murmurs  to  tell  of  the  three  hundred 
sleeping  peacefully  beneath.  The  hurricane  and  the  tempest  have 
rocked  them  down  amid  the  coral  caves  of  old  ocean,  but  no  dreams 


160  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

come  to  the  eternal  slumber  and  no  noises  entered  into  the  everlast- 
ing rest..  Is  it  best  so  ?  Poor,  finite  souls  that  only  feel  love's  cease- 
less vigils  and  stretch  in  vain  the  longing  arms  of  hopeless  sorrow, 
think  little  of  the  faith  which  bids  them  weep  no  more  and  pray 
for  hope  and  consolation.  The  morning  brings  no  ship  and  night 
no  dear  ones  to  the  home-hearth  swept  since  the  day  of  sailing.  It 
can  not  be  that  the  secrets  of  the  drowned  must  remain  forever  in 
the  inexorable  bosom  of  the  sea.  Surely  some  wave  will  bear  them 
shoreward,  some  drift  take  them  out  to  the  islands  where  summer 
is  eternal  and  where  shipwrecks  never  come. 

BETTER  WAR  BY  LAND  THAN  SEA. 

[Kansas  City  Times.] 

The  talk  is  still  of  earthquake,  shipwreck  and  disaster.  By 
land  and  sea  the  face  of  the  Lord  appears  to  be  turned  away  from 
the  people. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  stories  which  come  from  Italy  with- 
out a  shudder  at  the  wholesale  destruction  of  so  much  life  and 
property.  Villages  disappear  as  a  stranded  ship  on  a  pitiless  lee 
shore.  Towns  are  blotted  out  as  though  a  swift  hand,  holding  a 
sponge,  had  suddenly  washed  away  the  figures  on  a  blackboard. 
This  hand,  however,  is  appalling,  for  it  emerges  from  the  darkness 
and  retires  again  into  the  darkness.  It  is  death,  but  it  is  the  sort  of 
death  that  comes  to  the  far  south  on  the  east  wind,  weaving  its 
winding  sheets  where  the  jangles  are,  and  leaping  out  from  the 
dark  lagoons,  a  horrid  specter,  just  when  all  nature  is  most  jocund 
and  when,  in  listening  to  the  birds,  one  can  dream  in  his  dreams 
that  surely  such  songs  must  also  be  sung  in 

"  The  sweet  fields  of  Eden." 

Cities — wherein  it  has  been  joyous  to  live,  and  wherein  peace, 
and  all  the  good  angels  who  wait  upon  her,  have  dwelt  together  as 
vestal  virgins  in  a  temple — have  heard  the  blowing  as  of  some  titanic 
subterranean  horns,  and  have  seen  walls  crash  down  and  palaces 
crumble  as  though  a  legion  of  imprisoned  Joshuas  were  reaching 
upward  again  for  that  sun  which  will  never  stand  still  any  more  in 
the  plains  of  Agalon. 

The  priest  dies  by  the  altar.  In  the  cradle  the  baby  croons  and 
goes  to  sleep  forever.  The  strong  man  turns,  as  it  were,  sword  in 
hand,  to  defend  his  household.  The  gray  hairs  of  age  count  for 
nothing  beyond  the  old,  immemorial  aureole.  The  mother,  beauti- 
ful in  the  august  beauty  of  accepted  death,  rushes  to  guard  hfr  chil- 
dren and  perishes  above  them  as  though  she,  too,  had  the  Douglas 
blood  in  her  veins,  as  when 

"  Dead  above  the  heart  of  Bruce 
The  heart  of  .Douglas  lay." 

There  were  revels  and  routs  and  balls.  In  several  of  the 
stricken  places  bridal  affairs  were  in  process  of  consummation. 
Music  abounded.  Odors  were  everywhere.  On  the  silk  and  satin 
edges  of  the  throngs  the  click  as  of  castanets  came  to  stir  the  blood, 
as  the  blast  of  bugles  do  in  battle.  These  were  the  feet  of  the 
merry  dancers  "  dancing  in  tune." 

Suddenly  death  took  a  hand  in  all  too  many  of  these  transac- 
tions; as  he  came  at  Herculaneum ,  as  he  came  at  Pompeii;  as  lie  has 
come  so  of  ten,  so  often  to  so  many  in  the  first  springtime  and  affluence 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  161 

of  youth;  to  so  many  who  have  never  known  any  other  season 
except  spring,  with  its  passion  flowers,  or  summer  with  its  roses — so 
he  came  to  many  a  shattered  and  desolated  hamlet,  or  village,  or 
town  in  Italy.  Every  sort  of  shape  we  have  described  death  took 
in  its  recent  terrible  visitations,  and  our  own  people  barely  catch 
glimpses  of  the  real  horrors  of  the  work  done  by  these  dreadful 
upheavals.  The  inmates  of  churches,  convents,  schools,  palatial 
residences,  hovels,  marts  of  commerce,  all  avenues  of  trade  and 
traffic  have  perished  in  a  moment,  have  been  multilated  or  crippled 
or  robbed  of  everything  which  is  really  fit  to  make  life  enjoyable. 

If  a  certain  number  of  the  human  race  have  to  be  destroyed 
violently,  as  many  contend,  to  maintain  the  equilibrium  of  the  pop- 
ulation, why  not  let  them  be  destroyed  through  war?  Only  the 
strong,  then,  the  fearless  and  the  ambitious,  have  to  go.  Glory 
awaits  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  They  can  see  death  as  he  waits  for 
them.  He  is  yonder  in  that  battery's  smoke.  Where  that  tawny 
earthwork  crouches,  all  about  it  seemingly  asleep,  as  some  gorged 
wild  beast  in  its  lair,  he  has  been  in  ambush  since  the  early  morn- 
ing. Takecarei  Those  half-bent  figures,  with  guns  at  a  trail,  just 
creeping  like  panthers  into  the  right-hand  thicket,  are  as  so  many 
spectral  fingers  pointing  to  death's  unerring  line  of  battle.  You  hear 
in  the  darkness  the  clanking  of  steel  scabbards,  cries,  oaths,  the  neigh- 
ing of  horses,  a  steady  tramp,  tramp,  as  of  waves  breaking  on  a 
beach,  and  a  low,  continuous  rumble,  as  of  thunder  at  sea.  Be 
ready!  Death  is  marching  through  the  night  to  do  its  deadly  work 
in  the  daylight.  An  attacking  army  is  getting  into  line. 

But  who  perish?  Only  men  —  men  —  men!  Young,  stalwart 
fellows,  lusty  food  for  gunpowder,  and  fit  to  get  over  yonder  all  the 
houris  and  odalisques  that  may  be  had  in  the  warrior's  Paradise. 
No  children  perish.  No  babes  at  the  breast.  No  aged  people  at  the 
brink  of  the  grave.  No  priest  at  the  altar.  No  brides  "betwixt  the 
red  wine  and  the  chalice." 

A  CLOSE  CALL. 

[Kansas  City  Times.'} 

The  assassin  who  fired  point  blank  at  Jules  Ferry,  not  probably 
over  five  feet  away,  surely  meant  to  kill  him.  He  hit  him  twice,  but 
it  appears  as  if  neither  bullet  broke  the  skin,  much  less  penetrated. 
In  this  no  doubt  many  will  see  a  miracle — those  who  are  always 
seeking  for  signs,  signals,  portents,  and  interpretation  outside  of 
human  nature  and  common  sense.  The  multitude,  however,  will 
only  see  a  very  indifferent  pistol  and  powerfully  poor  gunpowder. 

Jules  Ferry  is  one  of  the  strongest  men  intellectually  in  France. 
He  is  a  philosopher,  a  bit  of  a  stoic,  not  given  to  retrospects,  never 
disturbed  by  illusions  and  looks  askance  at  the  French  republic  as 
if  it  were  some  untamable  mustang  of  a  thing,  dangerous  to  mount 
and  impossible  to  ride.  In  addition,  he  lives  up  to  Talleyrand's 
famous  motto:  "Never  have  anything  to  do  with  an  unlucky  man." 

But  as  to  Jules  Ferry's  politics — ah!  that  is  quite  another  mat- 
ter. He  may  be  a  Republican  and  he  may  not.  A  Bonapartist, 
then?  Never.  Of  that  dynasty  he  once  said:  "  In  that  nest  there 
was  only  one  eagle.  The  world  can  not  afford  such  eagles  but 
rarely  in  the  centuries." 

Orleanist?  No.  The  younger  generations  of  Louis  Philippe, 
Charles  X.,  and  that  other  old  fellow  of  Chambord,  with  hislillies 
in  place  of  the  tri-color,  and  that  preposterous  soubriquet  of  his  of 


162  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Dieudonne — the  God-given—  do  not  fuse,  can  not  unite  their  forces, 
have  no  cohesion,  have  no  sense,  don't  know  France,  don't  know  its 
population.  They  belong  to  his  proscribed  crowd  of  unlucky 
people. 

Opportunist?  That  may  be.  An  Opportunist  in  politics  is 
what  an  Agnostic  is  in  religion.  In  either  surrounding ,  the  creed 
thoroughly  summed  up,  is  this:  I  do  not  know.  There  may  be  a 
devil  and  tnere  may  not.  There  may  be  something  above  in  the 
shape  of  a  New  Jerusalem  and  there  may  not.  After  this  life  there 
may  be  another  and  there  may  not.  After  death  there  may  be  a 
resurrection  and  there  may  not.  I  do  not  know. 
This  is  the  Agnostic. 

The  Opportunist  reasons  pretty  much  in  the  same  way.  Every- 
thing and  nothing  are  taken  for  granted.  There  may  be  a  war  with 
Germany.  Very  well.  There  may  be  a  Russian  alliance.  Still 
very  well.  Perhaps  one  of  these  days  a  coup  d'etat  may  come 
along.  It  would  not  surprise  me.  A  republic  is  impossible  in 
France.  I  have  never  denied  it.  The  army  at  heart  is  for  a  mon- 
archy. That  does  not  surprise  me.  I  simply  do  not  know.  What- 
ever the  new  broom  may  be,  I  shall  take  good  care  to  have  hold  of 
the  handle.  Is,  then,  M.  Jules  Ferry  a  Republican?  Evidently  the 
poor  fool  who  tried  to  kill  him  thought  not,  as  did  those  who  were 
back  of  him,  and  who  probably  sent  him  to  the  galleys  for  the  bal- 
ance of  his  natural  lifetime.  They  will  scarcely  cut  off  his  head. 
The  guillotine  now-a-daysis  a  kind  of  an  aristocratic  institution.  It 
has  spilt  so  much  blood  of  blue-blooded  people  first  and  last  that 
the  thing  has  become  to  have  a  sort  of  horrible  prescience.  Some- 
thing of  the  souls  of  those  great  ones  whom  it  has  put  to  death  may 
have  entered  into  its  own  mechanical  organization.  Mark  you,  a 
king  died  under  its  knife.  And  a  queen.  And  heroic  old  generals 
grown  gray  in  war,  with  only  their  scars  to  tell  their  story.  And 
orators  whose  eloquence  belongs  to  immortality.  And  that  colossus 
Danton.  whose  tramp  across  the  surface  of  France  shook  Europe, 
and  at  the  roar  of  whose  terrible  voice  armies  sprang  instantly  into 
life  and  marched  away  to  the  frontier — why,  indeed,  should  not  the 
guillotine  be  a  little  bit  particular  now  about  its  victim,  and  be 
granted  some  favors  in  the  way  of  discriminating  between  criminals? 
M.  Ferry  is  not  the  man  who  can  touch  the  fiber  of  the  national 
heart  of  France,  which  is  in  constant  vibration  either  sensitively 
or  violently,  because  he  is  not  in  unison  with  it.  Between  political 
parties  who  decimate  and  immolate  one  another,  he  is  clearly  of  the 
opinion  that  it  is  not  best  to  tear  too  many  passions  to  tatters.  In 
the  days  gone  by  he  was  a  stubborn  fighter  in  the  ranks  of  whatever 
opposition  was  uppermost,  but  always  in  the  ranks  of  the  opposition. 
Of  late  he  has  neither  written  much  nor  spoken  scarcely  any  at  all. 
He  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  republic  does  not  know  what  it  wants 
nor  whither  it  is  going.  No  doubt  he  is  tired.  He  has  reached  that 
age  in  life  when  he  would  like  to  think  a  little.  He  sees  all  the  par- 
ties about  him  actuated  rather  by  likes  than  by  hopes,  by  aversions 
rather  than  by  principles.  He  sees  no  brilliant  star  arising  amid  the 
mists  of  the  evening  to  guide  new  generations  aright  on  the  pathway 
that  leads  to  his  ideal  republic,  and  he  doubts,  folds  his  hands  and 
sets  still. 

Why,  of  all  other  men,  he  should  have  been  singled  out  to  be 
murdered,  surpasses  all  understanding  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  163 

THE  KILLING  OF  JESSE  JAMES. 

[Sedalia  Democrat,  April,  1881.] 

"  Let  not  Caesar's  servile  minions, 

Mock  the  lion  thus  laid  low: 
'Twas  no  1'oeman's  hand  that  slew  him. 
'Twas  his  own  that  struck  the  blow." 

No  one  among  all  the  hired  cowards,  hard  on  the  hunt  for  blood- 
money,  dared  face  this  wonderful  outlaw,  one  even  against  twenty, 
until  he  had  disarmed  himself  and  turned  his  back  to  his  assassins, 
the  first  and  only  time  in  a  career  which  has  passed  from  the  realms 
of  an  almost  fabulous  romance  into  that  of  history. 

We  called  him  outlaw,  and  he  was,  but  Fate  made  him  so.  When 
the  war  came  he  was  just  turned  of  fifteen.  The  border  was  all 
aflame  with  steel,  and  fire,  and  ambuscade,  and  slaughter.  He  flung 
himself  into  a  band  which  had  a  black  flag  for  a  banner  and  devils  for 
riders.  What  he  did  he  did,  and  it  was  fearful.  But  it  was  war. 
It  was  Missouri  against  Kansas.  It  was  Jim  Lane  and  Jennison 
against  Quantrell,  Anderson  and  Todd. 

When  the  war  closed  Jesse  James  had  no  home.  Proscribed, 
hunted,  shot,  driven  away  from  among  his  people,  a  price  put 
upon  his  head — what  else  could  the  man  do,  with  such  a  nature, 
except  what  he  did  do?  He  had  to  live.  It  was  his  country. 
The  graves  of  his  kindred  were  there.  He  refused  to  be  ban- 
ished from  his  birthright,  and  when  he  was  hunted  he  turned  sav- 
agely about  and  hunted  his  hunters.  Would  to  God  he  were 
alive  to-day  to  make  a  righteous  butchery  of  a  few  more  of  them. 

There  never  was  a  more  cowardly  and  unnecessary  murder  com- 
mitted in  all  America  than  this  murder  of  Jesse  James.  It  was 
done  for  money.  It  was  done  that  a  few  might  get  all  the  money. 
He  had  been  living  in  St.  Joseph  for  months.  The  Fords  were 
with  him.  He  was  in  the  toils,  for  they  meant  to  betray  him. 
He  was  in  the  heart  of  a  large  city.  One  word  would  have  sum- 
moned 500  armed  men  for  his  capture  or  extermination.  Not 
a  single  one  of  the  attacking  party  need  to  have  been  hurt.  If, 
when  his  house  had  been  surrounded,  he  had  refused  to  surrender, 
he  could  have  been  killed  on  the  inside  of  it  and  at  long  range.  The 
chances  for  him  to  escape  were  as  one  to  10,000,  and  not  even 
that;  but  it  was  never  intended  that  he  should  be  captured.  It 
was  his  blood  the  bloody  wretches  were  after — blood  that  would 
bring  money  in  the  official  market  of  Missouri. 

And  this  great  commonwealth  leagued  with  a  lot  of  self-con- 
fessed robbers,  highwaymen  and  prostitutes  to  have  one  of  its  citi- 
zens assassinated,  before  it  was  positively  known  he  had  ever  com- 
mitted a  single  crime  worthy  of  death. 

Of  course  everything  that  can  be  said  about  the  dead  man  to 
justify  the  manner  of  his  killing,  will  be  said;  but  who  is  saying  it? 
Those  with  the  blood  of  Jesse  James  on  their  guilty  souls.  Those 
who  conspired  to  murder  him.  Those  who  wanted  the  reward,  and 
would  invent  any  lie  or  concoct  any  diabolical  story  to  get  it.  They 
have  succeeded,  but  such  a  cry  of  horror  and  indignation  at  the 
infernal  deed  is  even  now  thundering  over  the  land  that  if  a  single 
one  of  the  miserable  assassins  had  either  manhood,  conscience,  or 
courage,  he  would  go,  as  another  Judas,  and  hang  himself.  But  so 
sure  as  God  reigns,  there  never  was  a  dollar  of  blood-money  obtained 
yet  which  did  not  bring  with  it  perdition.  Sooner  or  later  there 


164  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

comes  a  day  of  vengeance.  Some  among  the  murderers  are  mere 
beasts  of  prey.  These,  of  course,  can  only  suft'er  through  cold,  or 
hunger  or  thirst;  but  whatever  they  dread  most  that  thing  will  hap- 
pen. Others  again  among  the  murderers  are  sanctimonious  devils 
who  plead  the  honor  of  the  State,  the  value  of  law  and  order,  the 
splendid  courage  required  to  shoot  an  unarmed  man  in  the  back  of 
the  head;  and  these  will  be  stripped  to  their  skin  of  all  their  preten- 
sions, and  made  to  shiver  and  freeze,  splotched  as  they  aie  and 
spotted  and  piebald  with  blood,  in  the  pitiless  storm  of  public  con- 
tempt and  condemnation.  This  to  the  leaders  will  be  worse  than 
death. 

Nor  is  the  end  yet.  If  Jesse  James  had  been  hunted  down  as 
any  other  criminal,  and  killed  while  trying  to  escape  or  in  resisting 
arrest,  not  a  word  would  have  been  said  to  the  contrary.  He  had 
sined  and  he  had  suffered.  In  his  death  the  majesty  of  the  law 
would  have  been  vindicated  ;but  here  the  law  itself  becomes  a  muid<  rrr. 
It  leagues  with  murderers.  It  hires  murderers.  It  aids  and  aU  is 
murderers.  It  borrows  money  to  pay  and  reward  murderers. 
It  promises  immunity  and  protection  to  murderers.  It  is  itself  a 
murderer — the  most  abject,  the  most  infamous,  and  the  most  cow- 
ardly ever  known  to  history.  Therefore  this  so-called  law  is  an  out- 
law, and  these  so-called  executors  of  the  law  are  outlaws.  There- 
fore let  Jesse  James'  comrades — and  he  has  a  few  remaining  worth 
all  the  Fords  and  Littles  that  could  be  packed  together  between  St. 
Louis  and  St.  Joe — do  unto  them  as  they  did  unto  him.  Yes,  the 
end  is  not  yet,  nor  should  it  be.  The  man  had  no  trial.  What 
right  had  any  officer  of  this  State  to  put  a  price  upon  his  head  and 
hire  a  band  of  cut-throats  and  highwaymen  to  murder  him  for 
money  ? 

Anything  can  be  told  of  man.  The  whole  land  is  filled  with 
liars  and  robbers,  and  assassins.  Murder  is  easy  for  a  Lucdrtd 
dollars.  Nothing  is  safe  that  is  pure  or  unsuspecting,  or  just,  tut 
it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  law  will  become  an  ally  and  a 
co-worker  in  this  sort  of  a  civilization.  Jesse  James  Ins  been 
murdered,  first,  because  an  immense  price  had  been  set  upon  his 
head,  and  there  isn't  a  low-lived  scoundrel  to-day  in  Missouri  who 
wouldn't  kill  his  own  father  for  money;  and  second,  because  lie 
was  made  the  scape-goat  of  every  train  robber,  foot-pad  and  high- 
wayman between  Iowa  and  Tex?is.  Worse  men  a  thousand  times 
than  the  dead  man  have  been  hired  to  do  this  thing.  The  very 
character  of  the  instruments  chosen  shows  the  infairc  us  nature  of 
the  work  required.  The  hand  that  slew  him  had  to  be  a  traitors  !  Into 
all  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  devil's  work  there  were  threads  woven 
by  the  fingers  of  a  harlot.  What  a  spectacle  !  Missouri,  with 
splendid  companies  and  regiments  of  militia.  Missouri,  with  a 
hundred  and  seventeen  sheriffs,  as  brave  and  as  efficient  on  the  aver- 
age as  any  men  on  earth.  Missouri,  with  a  watchful  and  vigilant 
marshal  in  every  one  of  her  principal  towns  and  cities.  Missouri, 
with  every  screw  and  cog  and  crank  and  lever  and  wheel  of  her 
administrative  machinery  in  perfect  working  order.  Missouri, \A  iih 
all  her  order,  progress  and  development,  had  yet  to 'surrender  all 
these  in  the  face  of  a  single  man — a  hunted,  lied-upon,  proscribed 
and  outlawed  man,  trapped  and  located  in  the  midst  of  thirty -five 
thousand  people — and  ally  with  some  five  or  six  cut-throats  and 
prostitutes  that  the  majesty  of  the  law  might  be  vindicated,  and  the 
good  name  of  the  State  saved  from  all  further  reproach  !  Saved  ! 
Why,  the  whole  State  reeks  to-day  with  a  double  orgy — that  of  lust 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  165 

and  that  of  murder.    What  the  men  failed  to  do,  the  women 
accomplished. 

Tear  the  two  bears  from  the  flag  of  Missouri.  Put  thereon,  in 
place  of  them,  as  more  appropriate,  a  thief  blowing  out  the  brains 
of  an  unarmed  victim,  and  a  brazen  harlot,  naked  to  the  waist  and 
splashed  to  the  brows  in  blood. 

"VETERAN  SAM." 

[Kansas  City  Times,  July  31, 1884.] 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND — Enclosed  please  find  a  picture  of  an  old 
friend  of  yours.  You  will  probably  recognize  him  as  the  old  "Col- 
orado Sam"  who  helped  to  escort  you  and  General  Marmaduke 
across  Current  River,  by  way  of  Chalk  Bluff,  and  again  met  you  at 
Prairie  Grove,  and  was  on  the  "war-path"  all  through  the  "Price 
Raid,"  and  all  through  Missouri,  bushwhacking  around  against  your 
boys. 

I  have  him  now  at  home,  a  living  monument  of  what  once  was 
the  most  faithful  friend  that  man  ever  had  in  "times  that  tried  men's 
souls."  A  faithful  and  obedient  servant  in  war,  and  a  loving  and 
true  friend  in  peace;  a  target  for  Confederate  bullets;  roughing 
it  with  the  boys;  oftentimes  half  fed  and  ridden  well  nigh  to 
death,  he  never  complained.  All  through  the  great  struggle  of  the 
bitterest  war  that  was  ever  waged,  he  never  failed  in  the  performance 
of  his  allotted  duty,  and  now  at  thirty  years  of  age,  he  has  found  a 
home  with  his  old  master,  there  to  pass  away  the  remaining  years  of 
his  life,  amid  all  the  luxuries  that  horseflesh  could  desire.  A  play- 
thing for  the  children,  a  pet  for  the  women  and  a  friend  and  comrade 
of  the  man  that  fought  with  and  against  him,  "Veteran  Sam,"  long 
may  he  live.  Your  old  friend, 

E.  W.  KINGSBURY. 

P.  S. — I  expect  to  ride  him  at  the  celebration  of  Elaine's  inaug- 
ural. 

"VETERAN  SAM." 

[St.  Joseph  Gazette,  August  3, 1884.] 

Elsewhere  in  to-day's  paper  we  publish  a  letter  from  an  old 
friend  and  associate  of  the  old  days,  Capt.  E.  W.  Kingsbury,  now 
of  Kansas  City.  It  will  explain  itself.  It  will  tell  of  a  veteran 
war  horse,  thirty  years  of  age,  which  has  at  last  come  back  into 
the  hands  of  his  old  master,  where,  if  tenderness  and  affection  can 
avail  aught,  he  will  have  added  to  the  already  lengthy  span  of  his 
life  many  more  good  and  thrifty  years. 

Captain  Kingsbury  commanded  Company  A,  of  the  Second 
Colorado  Cavalry  Regiment,  and  if  there  was  a  finer  company  or  a 
galanter  Captain  in  either  army,  the  war  history  up  to  date  makes 
no  mention  of  the  fact.  Indeed,  the  whole  Regiment  was  noted  for 
its  staying  and  fighting  qualities.  Quantrell  and  his  lieutenants 
had  been  doing  pretty  much  as  they  pleased  along  the  Kansas 
border  until  the  Second  Colorado  came.  They  would  congregate, 
make  a  desperate  dash,  do  some  sudden  deed  of  wholesale  killing, 
and  disappear.  Seeing  in  the  night  like  any  other  beasts  of  prey, 
they  mustered  and  raided  while  it  was  the  darkest.  Ordinarily  they 
were  never  followed  into  the  brush.  Ordinarily  the  foremost 
among  the  great  bulk  of  the  pursuers  stopped  short  at  the  timber 
line  as  though  it  were  a  line  of  unindurable  fire. 


166  JOHN   NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

Composed  largely  of  plainsmen,  miners,  men  of  the  frontier 
and  old  Indian  fighters,  the  Coloradans  stopped  at  nothing.  Whether 
by  day  or  by  night,  when  they  struck  a  trail  they  followed  it  to  a 
funeral.  "  Damn  these  fellows,"  Quantrell  used  to  say,  over  and 
over  again,  "  will  nothing  ever  stop  them?"  It  was  very  hard  to  do. 
Shelby  was  the  only  man  who  ever  did,  and  he  had  to  give  up  about 
eight  hundred  of  his  very  best  in  less  than  an  hour's  fighting  to  do 
even  that  much.  It  was*  near  Newtonia,  Newton  County,  Missouri 
— a  place  where  was  fought  one  of  the  quickest,  hottest,  bloodiest 
little  combats  of  the  Civil  War.  It  was  the  last  combat  of  the  Price 
Raid,  of  1864,  and  took  place  on  a  prairie  almost  as  level  as  a  sea 
strand.  Shelby  was  still  covering  the  rear  of  Price's  stricken  expe- 
ditionary column,  as  he  had  been,  day  and  night,  ever  since  the  fight 
at  Mine  Creek,  near  to  where  Pleasanton,  Kansas,  now  stands. 
Every  furious  onslaught  had  failed  either  to  break  or  shake  his  hold 
loose  from  the  rear.  He  fought,  ran,  turned  about,  fought  again, 
ran  some  more,  wheeled  round  again,  still  kept  fighting,  and  finally 
saved  everything  that  was  left  to  him  to  save  after  Mine  Creek. 

Blunt,  a  grand  soldier  in  every  way,  and  a  grand  man  besides — 
took  up  the  hunt  where  Pleasanton  left  it  off,  and  poured  after  the 
fleeing  Confederates  a  devouring  tide  of  veteran  horsemen,  the  Sec- 
ond Colorado  leading,  with  Captain  Kingsbury  and  his  company  in 
advance  of  the  Regiment.  They  had  two  or  three  squadrons  of 
white  houses,  and  wherever  these  were  encountered  the  Confederates 
knew  well  always  that  the  Second  Colorado  was  to  the  front. 

Shelby,  as  he  took  position  in  front  of  Blunt,  spoke  to  his 
advance,a  picked  body  of  soldiers, in  curt.sententious  phrase:  "Boys, 
there  are  our  old  white  horses  again.  It's  the  Second  Colorado.  It 
is  going  to  be  a  stricken  field  for  somebody.  I  can't  fall  back  any 
further,  and  they  won't." 

Thereafter  the  combat  was  a  duel.  The  white  horses  went 
down  fast,  but  so  did  a  good  many  other  horses  which  were  not 
white.  Most  generally  where  the  steed  lay,  there  also  lay  his  rider. 
No  one,  unless  he  has  been  a  participant  in  a  prairie  fight  between 
two  bodies  of  veteran  soldiers,  knows  how  bloody  and  pitiless  they 
most  of  them  were.  No  tree,  no  hillock,  no  sway  of  the  ground,  no 
shelter.  It  was  a  savage  grapple  out  on  the  open,  where,  when  all 
w^as  done,  he  who  held  the  field  had  nothing  to  exalt  himself  over 
him  who  surrendered  it,  fighting.  Captain  Kingsbury  was  badly 
wounded  at  Newtonia,  and  so  was  his  brave  old  horse,  "Veteran 
Sam,"  a  picture  of  whom,  in  his  thirtieth  year,  his  old  master  has 
just  sent  to  the  editor  of  this  newspaper. 

This  little  present  is  prized  much.  It  recalls  events  of  the  old 
war  days  which  were  made  happy,  some  of  them,  with  faithful  com- 
radeship, and  some  of  them  made  sad  as  with  tears.  Perhaps  no 
two  bodies  of  opposing  soldiers  ever  had  more  real  respect  for  each 
other,  or  oftener  gave  evidence  of  it  than  did  Shelby's  men  and  the 
Coloradans.  They  fought  each  other  desperately,  but  when  the 
fighting  was  done  whichever  side  held  the  field  that  side  made  mer- 
ciful haste  to  look  after  the  wounded.  Since  the  war,  and  when- 
ever any  of  these  two  bodies  meet,  there  is  always  a  lovefeast.  In 
Jackson  county,  where  fully  two  regiments  of  Shelby's  old  soldiers 
used  to  reside,  and  where  there  are  living  to-day  many  of  Quant- 
rell's  most  savage  guerrillas,  Captain  Kingsbury  s  name  is  a  house- 
hold word,  and  many  is  the  story  tbey  tell  to  this  day  of  the  daring 
and  prowess  of  the  "  Colorado  boys." 

In  wishing  again,  therefore,  a  still  further  lease  of  life  for 
"  Veteran  Sam,"  we  do  not  well  see  how  we  could  put  it  stronger 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  167 

than  by  wishing  that  he  may  live  until  his  gallant  master  rides  him 
at  the  "  celebration  of  Elaine's  inaugural." 

ADDRESS  ACCEPTING  A  FLAG. 

[From  the  Camden,  Arkansas,  Herald,  February  26, 1864.] 

Captain  J.  N.  Edwards,  of    Shelby's  Brigade,  received   the 
banner  on  the  part  of  the  escort,  with  the  following  address: 
Ladies,  Mr.  Speaker  and  Soldiers: 

In  receiving  this  flag,  as  the  representative  of  this  Company,  I 
take  upon  myself  a  proud  and  pleafeing  task.  Made  by  the  fair  hands 
of  woman;  dedicated  to  a  grand  and  glorious  cause;  sanctified  by 
the  holy  symbols  of  a  true  faith — its  crest  to-day  is  as  bright  as  the 
sunlight  that  flashes  on  steel.  Pure  and  stainless  as  an  angel-guarded 
child,  it  must  never  be  dishonored.  It  is  confided  to  your  keeping 
as  a  tender  and  timid  maiden  gives  her  virgin  heart  to  the  first  sweet 
whisperings  of  love.  Cherish  it,  protect  it,  fight  for  it,  die  for  it. 
There  is  a  day  to  come  when  it  must  receive  its  baptism  of  fire  and 
blood  in  the  rattle  of  discordant  musketry,  and  the  thunder  of  impa- 
tient drums.  Let  it  ever  be  on  the  crest  of  battle,  its  blue  folds  the 
meteor  of  the  storm,  its  bright  associations  cheering  the  warrior's 
heart  like  the  white  plume  of  Navarre.  Once  more  the  spring-time 
comes  with  the  tread  of  invading  armies,  and  the  shouts  of  cruel 
foe.  The  road  is  plain  and  the  path  is  beaten.  Here  are  the  blue 
skies  and  the  green  fields  of  our  native  Southland ;  here  our  fathers 
sleep;  and  here  cluster  all  our  idols  and  our  household  gods,  glorious 
with  the  light  and  the  love  of  a  lifetime;  and  when  the  Old  Cavalry 
Division  of  General  Marmaduke  takes  the  field,  our  enemies  will 
sternly  find 

"That  Nottingham  has  archers  good; 
And  Yorshire  men  are  stern  of  mood; 
Northumbrian  prickers  wild  and  rude. ' 
On  Derby's  hills  the  paths  are  steep; 
In  Ouse  and  Tyne  the  fords  are  deep; 
And  many  a  banner  will  be  torn, 
And  many  a  knight  to  earth  be  borne, 
And  many  a  sheaf  of  arrows  spent, 
'Ere  Scotland's  king  shall  cross  the  Trent." 

Into  your  hands,  veterans  of  Springfield,  Hartville,  Prairie 
Grove  and  Helena,  I  surrender  this  standard.  A  lady  made  it;  her 
prayersfollow  it;  your  General  gave  it;  and  you  will  defend  it.  And 
oh!  amid  the  wreck  and  ruin  of  contending  squadrons;  the  clash  of 
raging  steel,  and  the  glare  of  maddened  powder;  the  shout,  the 
charge,  the  forlorn  rally — where  beauty  and  gloom  go  down  together; 
the  wild,  tempestous  shock  of  battle;  the  headlong  rush  of  steed  and 
steel,  may  God  keep  it  pure  and  spotless  as  the  grand  old  flag  that 
waved  o'er  Sumter's  battered  walls.  When  the  deadly  war  is  over; 
when  the  red  banners  of  strife  have  gleamed  over  the  last  foughten 
field,  and  paled  beyond  the  sunset  shore;  when  our  gJorious  cause 
has  risen  beautiful  from  its  urn  of  death  and  chamber  of  decay,  with 
the^ternal  sunlight  of  land  redeemed  on  its  wings;  and  the  white 
pinions  of  peace,  like  a  brooding  dove,  are  hovering  about  us,  let 
the  memories  of  this  day  go  with  you;  let  the  affections  of  your 
hearts  go  with  this  old  banner — all  tattered  and  torn  though  it  may 
be— and  cling  to  it,  and  linger  round  it,  like  the  dew  on  a  summer 
hill. 

In  your  name  I  thank  the  fair  donor— in  your  name  I  thank  our 
gallant  General. 


168  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

CARRIER'S  ADDRESS  OF  THE  MISSOURI  EXPOSITOR. 
January  1,  1861. 

[By  John  N.  Edwards.] 

Time's  tireless  wing  has  borne  away 

The  fond  old  year  of  yesterday ; 

Not  crowned  with  flowers,  as  sweet  June  dies, 

Mid  weeping  stars  and  tender  skies, 

And  twilight  fountains  murmering  by 

A  sad  and  tender  lullaby ; 

But  as  some  grim  old  warrior  falls, 

When  foemen  storm  his  castle  walls. 

Let  winter  mourn  the  monarch  dead, 

And  heap  his  snow-drifts  on  his  head— 

For  all  his  farewell  gifts  were  hers, 

The  ermine  robes,  the  frozen  tears, 

The  naked  trees,  and  everything 

That  wpos  and  loves  her  rival,  Spring. 

'  Tis  vain,  perchance,  and  sad  as  vain, 

To  call  its  memories  back  again ; 

Yet  from  without  the  silent  past, 

Dark  shadows  o'er  the  heart  are  cast ; 

A  happy  home  where  death  has  been, 

To  claim  the  fairest  form  within ; 

A  tress  of  hair,  but  it's  dimmed  by  years ; 

A  tiny  glove,  but  it's  soiled  by  tears ; 

The  little  grave  on  the  cold  hill-side, 

That  was  made  the  morn  the  baby  died, 

Mark  all  too  well  the  ebb  and  flow 

Of  joys  and  sorrows  here  below; 

And  the  sky  is  dark,  and  the  night  is  drear, 

God  shield  us  now  from  the  tempest  here ! 

Great  events  are  on  the  gale 

That  soon  may  tell  a  darker  tale; 

And  oh  !  it  was  a  fearful  sight 

To  see  the  armies  ranged  for  fight. 

Grim  Lincoln  led  the  Northern  host. 

Imbued  too  strong  with  Seward's  boast: 

That  all  the  States  must  now  be  free, 

And  curst  the  hydra,  slavery. 

Yet  still  against  his  subtle  art 

Came  Breckinridge,  with  lion  heart, 

Douglas'  war-cry  too  was  heard, 

And  Bell's  poor,  threadbare  rallying  word. 

They  close  in  conflict — loud  and  high 

Rang  banner-shout  and  battle-cry. 

Some  fought  for  fireside,  home,  and  wife, 

Some  fought  for  natural  love  of  strife, 

And  some,  alas!  for  very  hate 

Of  all  our  memories,  good  and  great. 

Yet  still  against  the  mighty  North 

Breckinridge  led  on  his  own  loved  South ; 

And  by  his  side  was  Yancey's  crest, 

A  cockade  on  his  dauntless  breast — 

With  lance  in  rest  and  spur  of  fire 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  169 

He  charged  where  burst  the  storm-cloud  higher ; 

South  Carolina's  wave-kissed  shore 

Sent  back  a  proud,  defiant  roar  ; 

And  green  Virginia's  bosom  rose 

In  sorrow  o'er  her  sisters'  woes. 

In  vain!  in  vain  their  strength  and  mightl 

In  vain  was  Yancey's  giant  fight — 

Down  went  the  fairest  banner  there, 

Hurled  back  the  pious  patriot's  prayer ; 

And  baffled,  routed,  forced  to  yield, 

They  slowly  left  the  hated  field. 

Where  will  it  end?    God  only  knows! 

Ask  every  Southern  wind  that  blows; 

Ask  armed  men  that  meet  by  day, 

And  swear  to  fling  their  lives  away; 

Ask  every  lone  star  on  high, 

That  breathes  the  freedom  of  the  sky; 

Ask  every  curse  that  goes  to  heaven, 

With  hate  and  fury  fiercely  laden ; 

Ask  South  Carolina's  bursting  shock, 

And  feel  the  Union  reel  and  rock, 

As,  with  her  lone  flag  in  the  sky, 

She  bids  it  now  a  last  good-bye. 

All  is  dreary,  dire  and  dark — 

No  ray  of  hope,  no  tiny  spark 

To  tell  the  watchers  on  the  shore 

The  ship  of  state  is  safe  once  more. 

Ah!  see  the  grand  old  vessel  quiver  1 

How  her  timbers  groan  and  shiver ! 

Discord's  lightnings  flash  around  her, 

Burn  the  ropes  and  shrouds  above  her; 

Treason's  bloated  form  is  there; 

War's  cruel  sword  is  keen  and  bare; 

Ambition  scales  the  dizzy  mast, 

And  gives  a  black  flag  to  the  blast. 

Helm  aport !  hard  —  hard  alee! 

God!  how  deadly  white  the  sea! 

Breakers !  breakers !  through  the  gloom 

Hear  their  solemn,  sounding  boom. 

Can  you  save  her?    Pilots,  listen ! 

How  the  grim  rocks  gleam  and  glisten! 

Save  her  for  our  father's  sake, 

Save  her  for  the  lives  at  stake, 

Save  her  for  the  precious  freight, 

Save  our  glorious  ship  of  state! 

Starry  flag,  float  on,  unfurled, 

The  beacon  of  the  wide,  wide  world, 

And  bear  for  aye,  o'er  land  and  sea, 

The  magic  spell-word,  Liberty! 

Cause  on  effect  —  fate's  giant  wing 
Is  dark  with  terrors  yet  to  bring, 
And  every  day  but  adds  a  leaf 
To  destiny's  sad  book  of  grief. 
Scarce  e'er  the  mockery  had  begun, 
To  welcome  England's  monarch's  son, 
A  helpless  mass  of  bleeding  clay, 
The  dying,  butchered  Walker  lay, 


170  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWARDS. 

And  Rudler  pines  where  tropics  shed 

A  living  poison  on  his  head. 

Away!  away!  o'er  leagues  away! 

Italia's  night  is  almost  day. 

Hear  the  watchword  —  Como  rings 

With  the  melody  it  brings. 

Fight  as  brothers  —  let  us  die  — 

Die  beneath  our  own  loved  sky! 

Charge,  then,  heroes,  do  not  waver, 

Charge  once  more,  and  then  you  save  her. 

Charge  with  Freedom's  battle-cry, 

Charge  with  Garibaldi! 

Spain  in  torpor  long  had  lain, 

Now  starts  to  living  life  again; 

And  Austria,  wounded  near  to  death, 

Is  threatening,  with  her  feeble  breath. 

The  garlands  Solferino  gave, 

May  deck  the  first  Napoleon's  grave; 

But  France  needs  other  trophies  now, 

To  bind  around  her  monarch's  brow; 

A  wild,  grand  shock  where  armies  meet, 

Crowns  and  kingdoms  at  her  feet — 

A  second  Moscow's  lurid  glare 

Where  England's  Windsor  towers  fair; 

The  cold,  despotic  Russian  Czar 

Is  brooding  o'er  Italian  war, 

And  now  a  low,  deep,  deadly  cry, 

Is  bursting  out  from  Hungary. 

Let  tyrants  tremble —  Freedom's  star 

Is  hung  upon  the  verge  of  war, 

And  but  to  gain  it  crowns  will  sink, 

Thrones  totter  on  the  fearful  brink; 

Sacked  cities  swell  with  lurid  breath, 

The  reeking  pestilence  of  death  — 

Till  God's  eternal  justice  reigns, 

And  blood  wipes  out  the  peasant's  pains. 

When  sick  of  foreign  courts  and  places, 

Sick  of  titled  heads  and  faces  — 

Come  gladly  back  to  Lafayette, 

The  gem  of  Missouri's  coronet. 

Now  where  the  velvet  prairies  gleam, 

With  flowery  robe  and  sparkling  stream, 

The  iron  horse,  with  rapid  flight 

Will  wake  the  echoes  of  the  night; 

And  proudly  toss  its  burning  crest, 

In  honor  to  the  giant  West. 

And  where,  beneath  the  grand,  bright  sun, 

Is  fairer  town  than  Lexington? 

God  bless  her  commerce,  trade  and  arts, 

God  bless  her  generous  people's  hearts, 

And  bless  and  crown  her  lovely  girls 

With  smiles  of  love,  and  waves  of  curls — 

Till  every  glance  of  merry  light 

Will  raise  them  up  a  chosen  knight. 

Who'll  swear  by  faith  and  tiny  glove, 

Who'll  break  a  lance  for  his  lady-love! 

Thus,  on  the  dawn  of  sixty-one, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS. 

Its  uutried  journey  just  begun — 

I  wish  you  health,  and  wealth,  and  joy, 

And  gift  besides  for  the  CARRIER  BOY. 

MURDER  DONE;  OR,  THE  GYPSY'S  STORY. 

[By  John  N.  Edwards.] 
(1870.) 

Months  of  sorrow  and  days  of  sin  ; 
A  life  gone  out  as  the  knife  went  in. 
Hush  !    The  moon  was  too  young  to  see, 
The  shadows  they  fled  aghast  from  me  ; 
And  a  spirit  wailed  out  from  the  open  door : 
'  A  dead  man  lies  on  the  chamber  floor!  " 

Evelyn  Clare  was  debonair, 

Darkness  dwelt  in  his  dreamy  hair  — 

Dwelt,  and  dallied,  and  tangled  in 

Much  of  sorrow  and  more  of  sin. 

Hush  !    The  moon  was  behind  a  cloud  — 

Hidden  away  as  a  corpse  in  a  shroud : 

Hidden  away,  but  it  peered  at  *ne, 

Peered  and  grinned  through  the  aspen  tree ! 

Love  is  ripe  fruit  ready  to  fall 

In  the  arms  of  the  sunshine  over  the  wall  — 

So  fleet  to  fall  and  die  in  a  day, 

Its  red  gold  ruined  and  kissed  away. 

Isabel  came  with  her  peach-colored  face, 

Ringlets  ablow  and  her  baby  grace — 

Came  and  sighed  and  evil  came  after, 

And  blood  and  tears  in  the  wine  of  laughter  — 

'Till  Isabel's  lips  in  moan  go  over 

All  the  languid  lips  of  her  lover. 

Evelyn  Clare  was  a  king,  they  said, 

Crowned  with  love  from  the  heart  to  the  head  ; 

A  pale-browed  king  to  dabble  about 

In  seas  of  silks,  and  revel,  and  rout, 

With  kisses  for  coin  and  ruined  hair, 

A  panther- king  in  his  school-girl  lair. 

Girt  about  with  adorable  things, 

Scented  scarfs  and  talisman  rings, 

Plentiful  tresses  shorn  away 

From  heads  grown  old  and  gray  in  a  day. 

The  air  was  a  song  and  the  song  had  a  tune, 

Meet  for  the  mystical  roses  of  June. 

The  earth  and  the  sky,  and  the  sky  and  the  air 

Were  all  in  league  with  Evelyn  Clare. 

He  came  and  whispered :  "My  Gypsy  maid, 

Give  me  a  tangled  lock  to  braid." 

To  braid  !    Oh,  God  !  if  that  were  all—  - 

Hush  !  can  you  hear  the  dead  man  fall  ? 

I  saw  youth's  crown  on  his  Bacchanal  crest, 
Isabel's  face  on  his  dreaming  breast — 


172  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

A  lily  face  with  eyes  in  eclipse, 

Poppy  dew  on  the  venomous  lips  ; 

He  stirred  but  once  and  the  words  came  free 

"  The  Gypsy  maid  is  nothing  to  me." 

Lost !  lost !  lost ! 
A  beautiful  soul  is  lost : 
A  beautiful  soul  went  down  —  down  — 
Down  like  a  ship  at  sea  — 
Who  knows  if  a  soul  be  lost  ? 
The  moon  went  into  a  cave 

Whose  stalactites  were  pointed  with  stars — 

With  a  scintillant  crescent  of  stars, 
And  a  sweet  south  wind  came  over  the  rye 

And  broke  on  the  lattice  bars. 

It  was  ten  by  the  castle  clock  — 
Ten,  and  the  night  in  bloom, 
With  bud  of  stars  and  blossom  of  clouds, 

And  the  great  rose  of  the  moon. 
The  arbor  ivies  coiled  and  clung 
To  hear  the  accents  of  his  tongue  ; 
And  Isabel  for  sounds  to  waft  her 
Pleasure-boat  had  low-toned  laughter  — 
Laughter  such  as  you  seldom  hear 
Under  the  moon  by  a  dead  man's  bier. 

Hark  !    Is  that  a  step  on  the  staircase  there — 

Hushed  in  the  light  of  the  great  knife  bare  ? 

Hark  !  to  the  bearded  lips  that  tell : 

"  I  love  you,  love  you,  Isabel !" 

He  lay  in  the  moon  for  the  moon  to  keep 

Opiate  wine  for  the  drunkard  sleep. 

He  lay  with  arms  flung  wide  apart, 

Weak  fence  for  the  guard  of  the  lying  heart. 

He  lay  like  a  lover  taking  his  rest, 

The  red  in  his  cheeks  and  the  dreams  in  his  breast, 

The  red  in  his  cheeks  and  the  wind  in  his  hair, 

And  Isabel's  heart  with  Evelyn  Clare. 

Mad  !    Who's  mad  ?    The  Gypsy  maid, 
Cast  off,  abandoned,  and  betrayed  ? 
Mad  !     Who's  mad  ?    The  Zingaree — 
The  tropical  plant  from  over  the  sea  ? 
The  poisonous  flower  stripped  of  its  leaves, 
And  bound  in  the  wreath  of  his  lily  sheaves  ? 
Avaunt !  pale  moon,  and  send  your  cloud 
To  rift  me  the  rain  of  a  lover's  shroud ! 

Pretty  little  Isabel,  prim  as  any  pink, 
Did  you  ever  care  about  —  did  you  ever  think, 
Half  a  summer's  afternoon  of  the  suns  that  shine, 
Over  lovers  woed  with  steel  —  stabbed  for  kisses  over 

wine? 

Waxen  lady,  Isabel,  dainty  lady  lapped  in  white, 
Tawny  Gypsies  mingle  dirges  with  the  bridal's  music 

night, 
Hark  !  I  hear  the  dancers  dancing,  hear  the  love-lorn 

light  guitar, 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  173 

Softer  than  a  maiden's  masses  for  her  lover  slain  in  war. 
Hark  !     I  hear  the  waltz's  clarion  filled  with  pulses 

fierce  as  wine, 
Lit  by  beauty's  blessed  beacons,  starred  by  dusky  eyes 

divine. 
Hark  !    I  hear  the  pleading  prattle  wafted  from  the  lips 

of  girls, 
Half  their  shoulders  bare  as  swimmers,  half  their  heads 

in  bloom  with  curls, 
Hark  !    I  hear  your  Ev'lyn's  voice  rounding  off  its 

pliant  lies, 
As  the  south  wind  strips  the  cloud-veil  from  the  summer 

of  the  skies. 

I  struck  but  once — struck  hard  1 
The  aspens  bowed  in  the  yard  ; 
The  moou  was  hid  on  valley  and  hill, 
The  damp  dews  fell  in  the  window  sill. 
His  lips  moved  once,  oh,  God  !  to  tell 
Death's  broken  talk  to  Isabel. 
The  morn  came  up  the  broad  oak  stair, 
Wan  as  a  childless  mother  at  prayer — 
Came  to  the  face  of  the  stricken  sleeper, 
And  hid  his  lips  for  the  lips  of  the  weeper. 
Came  and  went,  and  the  sun  came  after, 
Splashed  with  jrold  each  beam  and  rafter  ; 
Came  breast  high  through  the  open  door, 
And  blessed  the  dead  man  on  the  floor. 

Ho  !  good  right  hand,  ye  are  red,  ye  are  red  ! 
And  the  soul  of  the  lily -browned  lover  is  fled. 
And  lover  and  maid  lie  stark  and  still 
In  a  little  green  grave  down  under  the  hill ; 
And  a  curse  to  make  the  dead  afraid 
Goes  up  to  the  sky  on  the  Gypsy  maid. 
The  Gypsy  maid  whom  Evelyn  Clare 
Caught  in  a  braid  of  Gypsy  hair, 
Caught,  and  snared,  and  caged  in  glee, 
'Till  she  sung  the  songs  learned  over  the  sea. 
Sung,  and  rocked  his  cradle  —  a  bier, — 
Sung,  and  dropped  a  venomous  tear, — 
Sung,  'till  the  eyes  went  into  eclipse, 
And  death  drank  the  dew  of  the  bearded  lips. 

The  old  owl  up  in  the  aspen  tree, 

Spoke  last  night  and  glared  at  me. 

Spoke  in  a  dreary  undertone : 

' '  The  dead  —  the  dead  —  can  the  dead  make  moan  ?  " 

All  last  night  I  lay  awake, 

The  grass,  moon-flecked  as  a  spotted  snake, 

Wove  pallid  hands  that  grasped  in  strife, 

A  deathly  dripping  dagger  knife. 

And  a  luminous  star  from  the  midnight's  crown, 

Suddenly  shimmered  and  settled  down, 

Half  on  the  low  grave  under  the  hill, 

And  half  on  the  tinkling,  tremulous  rill. 

The  dead  came  forth  arid  dallied  there, 

Isabel  Lorn  and  Evelyn  Clare. 

One  arm  lifted  high  above  her, 


174  JOHN  NEWMAN  ED \VARDS. 

And  one  about  her  spectral  lover. 

"  Make  inoan  !  "  said  the  owl,  cursed  fate  and  death, 

'Twas  a  love  that  lived  after  fleeting  breath. 

Here  and  there  the  lovers  strayed, 

And  laughed  aloud  at  the  Gypsy  maid. 

I  strangled  his  voice,  but  oh,  God  ! 

I  would  I  could  strangle  the  moan 
That  rushes  up  from  the  silent  sod 

When  I  walk  with  the  midnight  alone  I 

THE  BIVOUAC  OF  THE  DEAD. 

(.Kansas  City  Times,  1872.] 

One  of  the  most  thrilling  w  ar  lyrics  in  our  language  is  known 
by  this  title.  A  quatrain  has  heen  selected  from  it  to  serve  as  an 
inscription  over  the  gates  of  the  National  Cemetery  at  Boston,  in 
which  the  soldiers  of  Massachusetts  are  buried.  It  has  probably 
been  printed  at  sometime  or  other  in  every  newspaper  in  the  United 
States.  I  believe  it  has  almost  invariably  been  mis-printed,  and  the 
public  is  entitled  to  a  correct  copy.  The  occasion  for  which  it  was 
written  was  duplicated  in  the  State  Cemetery  of  Kentucky  on  the 
15th,  and  this  poem  was  read  over  the  remains  of  its  author  by  a 
brother  poet,  Major  Henry  Stanton,  who  had  access  to  original  rec- 
ords that  enabled  him  to  verify  the  text. 

Soon  after  the  Mexican  War,  Kentucky  erected  a  noble  monument 
to  her  dead  soldiers,  and  whenMcKee  and  Clay  and  others  of  her  he- 
roes who  fell  in  the  gorge  of  Buena  Vista,  were  reinterred  at  its  base, 
their  comrades  in  arms,  the  brave  and  gifted  Theodore  O'Hara,  wrote 
"  The  Bivouac  of  the  Dead  "  as  the  poem  of  the  occasion.  Major 
Cary  H.  Fry,  upon  whom  the  command  of  the  Second  Kentucky 
Regiment  devolved  after  the  Colonel  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  fell, 
was  present  when  the  poem  was  first  read  in  public.  On  the  15th 
there  was  another  great  military  and  civic  diplay  on  the  same  spot, 
and  the  same  poem  was  read  over  the  remains  of  O'Hara  and  Fry. 
In  the  war  between  the  States  they  had  served  in  opposing  armies, 
but  the  State  had  their  moldering  coffins,  with  that  of  Adjutant 
Cardwell,  brought  from  far  distant  graves  to  rest  side  by  side  with 
their  comrades  of  the  Mexican  War.  General  Wm.  C.  Preston 
delivered  the  funeral  eulogy,  and  we  subjoin  his  sketch  of  the 
author,  before  introducing  the  poem  : 

"Theodore  O'Hara  was  a  native  of  this  county,  the  son  of  a 
father  well  known  throughout  the  State  for  his  accomplishments  as 
a  scholar  and  his  worth  as  a  citizen.  Receiving  a  good  classical 
education  from  his  parent,  O'Hara  entered  upon  life  blessed  with 
an  ardent  mind,  a  handsome  person,  and  a  brave  and  generous  char- 
acter. He  soon  became  known  to  the  public  as  an  editor  in  the  city 
of  Louisville,  where  the  easy  grace  and  scholarly  polish  of  his  arti- 
cles soon  attracted  attention  and  placed  him  high  in  the  favor  of  the 
Democratic  party.  He  did  not  remain  long  in  this  pursuit,  but  war 
being  declared  against  Mexico,  he  abandoned  a  profession  in  which 
he  was  rapidly  acquiring  distinction,  and  accepted  a  captain's  com- 
mission in  the  army.  His  dashing  character  .and  poetic  tem- 
perament made  him  popular  in  a  service  suited  to  his  tastes  and 
genius,  and,  sharing  the  dangers  and  the  glory  of  our  arms  from 
Vera  Cruz  to  Mexico,  O'Hara  remained  in  service  until  the  termina- 
tion of  the  war.  Not  long  after  this  period,  O'Hara  was  one  of 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  175 

those  who  landed  with  the  force  at  Cardenas  under  General  Lopez 
for  the  liberation  of  Cuba,  when  Crittenden,  Logan  and  others  per- 
ished, but  he  escaped  with  a  few  of  the  survivors. 

"  When  the  recent  war  between  the  States  commenced,  O'Hara 
at  once  embraced  the  cause  of  the  South,  to  whose  principles  he  had 
always  adhered ,  and  became  a  staff  officer  under  General  Brecken- 
ridge.  In  the  Confederate  armies  O'Hara  by  his  courage  and  serv- 
ices, attained  the  rank  of  colonel,  and  after  the  establishment  of 
peace  retired  with  a  constitution  impaired  by  the  hardships  of  mili- 
tary life  to  the  vicinity  of  Columbus,  Ga. ,  where  he  not  long  after- 
ward died.  Having  known  Colonel  O'Hara  intimately,  both  in  his 
campaigns  in  Mexico  and  in  the  South;  having  enjoyed  the  pleasures 
that  his  cultivated  mind  and  genial  temper  gave  to  the  camp-fire  or 
the  march;  having  witnessed  his  brilliant  courage  and  quick  discern- 
ment in  battle;  having  seen  him  in  the  defiles  of  Mexico,  by  the  side 
of  Sidney  Johnson  in  his  dying  moments  at  Shiloh,  and  with  Breck- 
euridge  in  his  charge  at  Stone  River,  I  here,  in  this  solemn  moment, 
can  sincerely  say  that  I  believe  no  braver  heart  will  rest  beneath 
this  consectrated  sod,  and  no  spirit  more  knightly  or  humane  ever 
lingered  under  the  shadow  of  yonder  monument." 

The  following  is  the  correct  text  of  "The  Bivouac  of  the 
Dead:" 

The  muffled  drum's  sad  roll  has  beat 

The  soldier's  last  tattoo ! 
No  more  on  life's  parade  shall  meet 

That  brave  and  fallen  few; 
On  fame's  eternal  camping  ground 

Their  silent  tents  are  spread. 
And  glory  guards,  with  solemn  round, 

The  bivouac  of  the  dead. 

No  rumor  of  the  foe's  advance 

Now  swells  upon  the  wind, 
No  troubled  thought  at  midnight  haunts 

Of  loved  ones  left  behind ; 
No  vision  of  the  morrow's  strife 

The  warrior's  dream  alarms, 
No  braying  horn  nor  screaming  fife 

At  dawn  shall  call  to  arms. 

Their  shivered  swords  are  red  with  rust, 

Their  plumed  heads  are  bowed, 
Their  haughty  banner,  trailed  in  dust, 

Is  now  their  martial  shroud— 
And  plenteous  funeral  tears  have  washed 

The  red  stains  from  each  brow, 
And  the  proud  forms,  by  battle  gashed, 

Are  free  from  anguish  now.  t 

The  neighing  troop,  the  flashing  blade. 

The  bugle's  stirring  blast, 
The  charge,  the  dreadful  cannonade. 

The  din  and  shout  are  past— 
Nor  war's  wild  note,  nor  glory's  peal, 

Shall  thrill  with  fierce  delight 
Those  breasts  that  never  more  may  feel 

The  rapture  of  the  tight. 

Like  the  fierce  Northern  hurricane 

That  sweeps  his  great  plateau, 
Flushed  with  the  triumph  yet  to  gain 

Came  down  the  serried  foe — 
Who  heard  the  thunder  of  the  fray 

Break  o-er  the  field  beneath. 
Know  well  the  watch  word  of  that  day 

Was  victory  or  death. 


176  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Full  many  a  norther's  breath  has  swept 

O'er  Angostura's  plain, 
And  long;  the  pitying  sky  has  wept 

Above  its  molder'd  slain. 
The  raven's  scream  or  eagle's  flight, 

Or  shepherd's  pensive  lay, 
Alone  now  wake  each  solemn  height 

That  frowned  o'er  that  dead  fray. 

Sons  of  the  Dark  and  Bloody  Ground! 

Ye  must  not  slumber  there, 
Where  stranger  steps  and  tongues  resound 

Along  the  heedless  air; 
Your  own  proud  land's  heroic  soil 

Shall  be  your  fitter  grave; 
She  claims  from  war  its  richest  spoil— 

The  ashes  of  her  brave. 

Thus,  'neath  their  parent  turf  they  rest; 

Far  from  the  gory  field, 
Borne  to  a  Spartan  mother's  breast 

On  many  a  bloody  shield. 
The  sunshine  of  their  native  sky 

Smiles  sadly  en  them  here, 
And  kindred  eyes  and  hearts  watch  by 

The  heroes'  sepulchre. 

Rest  on,  embalmed  and  sainted  deadl 

Dear  as  the  blood  ye  gave; 
No  impious  footstep  here  shall  tread 

The  herbage  of  your  grave; 
Nor  shall  your  glory  be  forgot 

While  fame  her  record  keeps, 
Or  honor  points  the  hallowed  spot 

Where  valor  proudly  sleeps. 

Yon  marble  minstrel's  voiceless  stone, 

In  deathless  song  shnll  tell, 
When  many  a  vanished  year  hath  flown. 

The  story  how  ye  fell; 
Nor  wreck,  nor  change,  nor  winter's  blight. 

Nor  time's  remorseless  doom, 
Can  dim  one  ray  of  holy  light 

That  gilds  your  glorious  tomb. 

THE  MARRIAGE  OF  PERE  HYACINTHE. 

[Kansas  City  Times.] 

This  man,  with  a  name  like  a  flower,  would  lead  a  revolution. 
This  French  priest — charitable,  amorous,  poetical — would  deal  with 
an  iron  and  austere  thing  like  celibacy,  and  dismiss  it  as  a  thread- 
bare cassock  or  cowl.  To  prepare  himself  for  the  conflict,  he  has 
just  married.  From  out  the  soft  and  mellowed  light  of  his  honey- 
moon, and  from  amid  the  ardent  transports  of  his  delicious  life,  he 
has  written  in  favor  of  matrimony.  Were  this  document  nothing 
but  a  great,  palpitating  heart,  its  settings  and  adornments  are  com- 
plete. It  is  uxorious,  roseate,  sensuous,  full  of  little  sentences  like 
a  sigh — thick  with  images  like  his  nights  with  kisses. 

If  Hyacinthe  was  not  a  Frenchman,  he  would  understand  how 
fruitless  the  work  which  would  seek  to  batter  down  a  wall  with 
an  ostrich  feather.  If  he  had  not  mistaken  vanity  for  inspiration, 
he  would  understand  how  hopeless  the  task  of  attackirg  in  the 
name  of  the  church  an  ordinance  interwoven  with  the  very  fibers  of 
the  church.  Excommunicated,  he  yet  aspires  to  the  altar  ;  man- 
sworn,  he  yet  clings  to  the  odors  of  a  former  sanctity  ;  awake  in  the 
hush  of  his  honeymoon  nights,  he  yet  hears  in  his  memory  the 
matin  and  the  vesper  bells  of  Rome;  and  happy  in  the  arms  and  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  177 

smiles  of  his  wife,  he  would  yet  be  happy  in  the  holy  robes  and 
vestments  of  his  order. 

The  last  is  impossible.  Good  Catholic  he  may  be,  and  zealous 
in  the  cause  of  his  God  and  his  church,  but  a  priest  nevermore  for 
ever.  He  has  violated  his  vows  of  celibacy,  he  has  lifted  his  hand 
against  his  faith,  he  has  faltered  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  and 
he  has  been  cashiered  and  dismissed.  It  is  well.  The  time  has 
come  when  French  sensationalism  should  receive  a  check.  Cathol- 
icism has  had  quite  enough  of  Lacordaire,  Michelet,  Renan,  Hya- 
ciuthe,  and  Victor  Hugo.  Caesar's  prayer  was  pitiful,  but  it  was  full 
of  prophecy:  "Oh!  God,  if  Rome  is  to  be  cursed,  curse  her  not  with 
old  men  in  her  extremity."  And  if  the  church  of  Paris  could  cry 
out  it  would  be  in  thunder  tones  against  the  deadly  reign  of  materi- 
alism falsely  called  science;  of  sensationalism;  of  a  philosophy  so 
servile  as  to  become  infidelity;  of  that  furious  yearning  and  striving 
after  impossible  and  invisible  things;  of  the  poets  who  coin  their 
genius  into  satire  that  religion  maybe  wounded;  of  authors  who 
deny  the  Christ  that  miracles  maybe  lampooned;  and  of  priests 
like  Hyacinthe  who,  to  win  popular  applause,  wear  the  cassock  to-day 
and  the  masquerade  dress  to-morrow. 

Let  the  iron  creed  and  discipline  of  the  church  pass  over  them 
all.  Brilliant  Hyacinthe  believed  himself  a  Mahomet,  but  in  lieu 
of  the  scimetar  he  carried  an  orange  blossom.  In  the  early  years 
of  his  priesthood,  and  when  all  Paris  came  to  his  ministrations  at 
Notre  Dame,  the  rustle  of  a  silken  gown  affrighted,  and  the  flash 
of  a  black  eye  drove  him  beyond  the  bright  line  of  the  chandelier's 
light.  Now  how  changed.  Bitten  by  the  tarantula  of  sensation- 
alism, the  man  who  only  had  his  voice,  his  beautiful  white  hands, 
his  wonderful  rhetoric,  French  and  staccato,  his  eyes  that  were 
violet  at  times  and  at  times  dreamy  or  brown  —  this  man,  adored  of 
the  women,  and  watched  from  afar  by  grisettes  and  dames  of  grand 
degree,  turned  upon  Rome  because  he  could  make  a  pretty  parable, 
and  demanded  of  Rome  a  thing  that  Rome  would  not  give  even  to 
Rome  itself.  Baffled,  he  rebelled.  New  York  received  him  in 
finished  New  York  fashion,  and  for  a  month  he  was  a  lion.  Some 
Yankees,  shrewder  than  others  were,  flattered  him  with  a  future 
filled  by  an  American  Pope,  and  painted  for  him  a  spiritual  empire 
as  grand  as  the  continent.  Having  embraced  one  lust,  he  dallied 
with  another,  and  for  long  days  he  staggered  upon  the  edge  of  the 
pit  that  had  been  dug  for  him.  He  did  not  fall  in,  but  he  did  not 
repent,  and  so  he  returned  to  Europe  to  marry,  and  to  continue  his 
absurd  and  ridiculous  issue  with  the  church. 

Luther  led  a  revolution  ;  Hyacinthe  wages  an  emeute.  Between 
a  revolution  and  an  emeute  there  is  this  difference;  the  first  comes 
from  the  masses,  the  last  from  the  passions;  the  first  destroys,  pulls 
down,  obliterates,  but  it  builds  up,  re-creates  and  re  establishes;  the 
last  consumes,  demolishes,  stagnates,  dies;  the  first  commits  great 
crimes  that  good  may  follow;  the  last  commits  the  same  that 
bad  may  follow.  Luther  married  and  went  on  to  a  warfare  that 
was  audacious  and  gigantic;  Hyacinthe  marries  and  only  marries. 
Beyond  this  he  claims  to  be  all  that  he  ever  promised  to  be  when  he 
took  his  vows — the  same  in  faith,  in  belief,  in  creed  and  in  doc- 
trine. Poor  Frenchman,  not  to  know  that  in  breaking  one  vow 
he  broke  them  all,  and  that,  should  the  days  of  Methuselah  be  his, 
he  can  never  more  be  received  in  the  bosom  of  that  church  he  has 
forsaken  for  the  white  arms  and  the  scented  hair  of  his  beloved. 


178  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

/ 

NAPOLEON  AND  HIS  DETRACTORS. 

[Kansas  City  Time*,  August  10, 1888.] 

This  is  the  title  of  a  book  written  by  Prince  Napoleon,  which  is 
just  now  getting  well  under  fire  in  England.  If  it  has  been  trans- 
lated and  reprinted  in  this  country  it  is  well;  if  it  has  not  been  so 
done  the  sooner  it  is  done  the  better — all  of  which  means  that  the 
sooner  it  is  done  the  sooner  will  some  publishing  house  put  a  pile  of 
money  into  its  pocket. 

The  animus  against  this  publication,  on  the  part  of  the  London 
Illustrated  News  is  that  it  touches  up  strong  points  that  are  facile 
and  leaves  untouched  other  points  which  are  still  more  facile  and 
still  more  unassailable. 

Let  us  look  into  this  question  a  little  bit.  The  News  says  that  he 
disposes  in  a  most  masterly  manner  of  Bourienne,  Madame  de 
Remusat,  Miot  de  Melito,  the  Abbe  de  Pradt  and  Prince  Metternich, 
and  then  adds — we  quote  it  literally:  "  But  what  is  to  be  said  of  a 
champion  who  enters  and  quits  these  particular  lists  without  ventur- 
ing to  touch  the  shield  of  M  Lanfrey?" 

The  shield  of  M.  Lanfrey!  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace, 
defend  us;  why  not  say  the  shield  of  Sir  Walter  Scott?  The  last 
wrote  to  be  a  baronet.  He  prostituted  his  splendid  genius  to  pull 
down  a  man  who,  in  his  Scottish  heart  of  hearts  he  must  have 
adored,  and  who — in  so  many  elements  of  his  character — must  have 
been  near  of  kin  to  all  those  heroes  who  stood  out  like  men  of  iron 
from  the  pages  of  "  Marmion,"  the  "  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  "  Rokeby  " 
and  the  "  Lord  of  the  Isles." 

Lanfrey !  One  approaches  him  as  one  might  well  approach  a 
snake.  Did  he  attack  the  genius  of  Napoleon  as  a  soldier?  he 
could  not.  Did  he  attack  his  campaigns,  where  every  capital  was 
an  outpost  and  every  sovereign  a  mere  cup-bearer?  he  could  not. 
Did  he  attack  his  capacity  as  a  lawgiver,  wherein  he  wrote  like  Tac- 
itus and  collated  like  Justinian?  he  could  not.  What,  then,  did  he 
do?  He  wrote  so  that  the  Bourbons  might  give  him  the  gewgaw  of 
a  ribbon  and  the  grimcrack  of  a  decoration .  He  wrote  of  Napoleon's 
private  life;  of  his  supposed  lusts  and  his  supposed  love  affairs;  of 
My  Lord  Petulancy  and  My  Lord  Impatience;  of  how  he  took  ten 
minutes  to  dinner  and  ten  hours  to  his  studies;  of  how  he  had  shot 
Palm,  a  bookseller,  and  d'Enghien,  a  prince;  of  how  he  made  gren- 
adiers out  of  stable  grooms  and  marshals  of  France  out  of  men  who 
had  bled  horses.  Poor  babbler!  Mme.  de  Remusat  could  havedone 
better  than  that.  Her  grievance  was  that  groping  one  night — cer- 
tainly en  dishabille — to  find  Napoleon's  chamber  she  stumbled  across 
Roustem,  the  Arab,  swart,  wide  awake  and  lying  prone  across  the 
threshold.  She  fled,  shrieking,  iust  as  the  tawny  hand  of  the  east 
clutched  at  the  white  garments  or  western  civilization.  From  that 
hour  Madame  de  Remusat  looked  upon  Napoleon  as  an  ogre.  If 
they  had  embraced,  perhaps  she  would  have  looked  upon  him  as  an 
angel.  Who  knows?  When  Don  Juan  found  Miss  Fitz  Fulke  at 
the  end  of  the  corridor,  whatever  else  happened,  no  skeleton  has 
ever  yet  outlined  itself  to  prove  Miss  Blue  Stocking  right,  or  to  prove 
the  propriety  of  putting  a  spray  or  two  of  lilacs  on  the  grave  where 
Miss  Prim  Propriety  lies  buried.  Lanfrey  Remusat!  While  attack- 
ing Napoleon  for  the  large  embraces  that  happened  in  his  God-ap- 
pointed career,  contemporaneous  history  has  perhaps  forgotten  that 
Lanfrey  was  a  Bourbon  sneak  and  Madame  a  baffled  lady  of  the  bed 
chamber. 


MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  179 

The  News  makes  other  points  which  we  desire  especially  to  refer 
to.  It  admits  everything  as  connected  with  Napoleon's  military 
genius,  but  it  qualifies  everything  because  the  military  side  of  his 
character  does  not  comport  with  his  moral  side.  In  proof  of  this 
he  cites  several  instances.  Perhaps  the  most  salient  is  this  one 
wherein  he  refers  to  the  author  of  the  book  : 

Nor  has  he  a  word  to  bestow  on  such  a  wretched  business  as 
his  uncle's  legacy  to  Cantillon,  the  French  officer  who  was  tried  for 
an  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington — perhaps  the  most 
hopelessly  ignoble  bequest  which  has  ever  found  its  way  into  any 
testamentary  document  on  record. 

We  challenge  the  record  to  prove  that  Napoleon  ever  left  a 
legacy  to  Cantillon  because  he  proposed  to  assassinate  the  Duke  of 
Wellington.  He  denied  it.  Every  instinct  and  action  of  his  whole 
life  proved  it  to  be  a  lie.  Of  course  it  is  easy  to  enclose  in  the  last 
will  and  testament  of  such  a  man  as  Bonaparte,  administered  upon 
by  the  Bourbons,  the  final  development  of  a  thousand  daggers;  but 
all  such  stuff  as  this,  and  all  such  stuff  as  the  Wellington  assassin- 
ation is  bogus. 

Per  contra.  When  the  dead  body  of  George  Cadoudal  was 
searched  he  had  on  his  person  a  hundred  and  some  odd  sovereigns 
of  British  money.  When  Luttrel  was  grabbed  with  more  British 
gold  on  his  person,  and  a  bale  or  two  of  incendiary  proclamations 
ready  to  be  issued  out  of  hand,  he  was  not  shot  but  set  free.  The 
whole  career  of  Napoleon  was  merciful  to  such  a  degree  that  every 
unbiased  historian  has  taken  notice  of  it.  We  do  not  discuss  these 
moral  aspects  of  Bonaparte's  character.  We  only  contend  against 
the  proposition  that  the  News  sets  up,  that  he  must  be  judged  by  his 
moral  example — that  is  to  say,  whether  he  kissed  a  woman  more  or 
less,  whether  he  pardoned  a  criminal  more  or  less,  or  whether  he 
bore  himself  circumspectly  more  or  less. 

Nothing  of  Lodi !  Nothing  of  the  Pyramids !  Nothing  of  Mon- 
tenotte!  Nothing  of  Arcola!  Nothing  of  Marengo!  Nothing  of 
the  transfiguration— one  half  inspiration  and  the  other  half  endow- 
ment— where  the  corporal  became  emperor. 

The  News  does  not  even  skim  the  surface.  It  sums  up  every- 
thing, but  it  does  not  deliver. 


180 


JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 


THE  BEST  ONE  HUNDRED  BOOKS. 

A  RECENT   LIST    ARRANGED   BY  MAJOR  J.    N.    EDWARDS. 
[Kansas  City  Times,  April  7th,  1889. 


The  Bible. 

Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire. 

Hume's  History  of  England. 

Thiers'  French  Revolution. 

Thitrs'    Consulate    and    Empire ; 
Lamartine. 

History  of  the  Girondists. 

Michelet's  Roman  Republic. 

Mommsen's  Rome. 

Les  Miserables. 

Shakespeare,  with  Lear,  first  of  all 
his  plays. 

Voltaire's  Louis  XIV. 

Voltaire's  Charles  XII. 

Prescott's  Mexico  and  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella. 

Charles  V  and  Philip  II. 

Motley's  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Repub- 
lic ;  United  Netherlands,  and  John 
of  Barneveld. 
.    Guizot's  History  of  France. 

Macaulay's  History  of   England ; 
his  Essays  and  his  Lays. 

Lamartine's  History  of  Turkey. 

Hugo's  Ninety-Three. 

Hugo's  Toiler's  of  the  Sea. 

Grammont's  Memoirs. 

Louvet's    Chevalier    de    Faublas 
O'Mera's  Voice  from  St.  Helena. 

Montholon's  Memoirs. 

Scott's  Ivanhoe,  the  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  Marmion  and  Lord  of  the  Isles. 

Rossetti's  Poems. 

Swineburne's  Laus  Veneris. 

Irving's  life  of   Washington  and 
his  Fall  of  Grenada. 

Rollin's  Ancient  History. 

Dumas'  Count  of  Monte  Cristo  and 
Three  Guardsmen. 

Wandering  Jew. 

Burke's  Lives  of  the  Popes. 

Hildreth's  History  of  the  United 
States. 

Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

Napier's  Peninsula  War. 


Josephus. 

Froude's  Julius  Caezar. 

Tactitus — what  can  be  gotten  of 
him. 

Soutonius — as  fragmentarjr  as  it 
is. 

Memoirs  of  Baron  Besenval. 

Carlyle's  French  Revolution  and 
Frederick  the  Great. 

Tennyson's  Poems  as  a  Whole. 

Kinglake's  Crimean  War. 

Cooper's   five   stories,  known   as 
the  Pathfinder  Series. 

Hawthorne's  Scarlet  Letter. 

The  Koran. 

Plutarch's  Lives. 

Csezar  Commentaries. 

Jomin's  Campaigns  of  Napoleon, 
also  his  Art  of  War. 

Thackeray's  Georges. 

Bulwer's  Strange  Story  and  What 
Will  He  Do  With  It  ? 
Dickens'  Mutual  Friend  and  Bleak 
House. 

Lawrence's  Guy  Livingstone  and 
Barren  Honour. 

What  is  left  of  Livy. 

Napoleon's  War  Maxims. 

Xenophon's  Anabasis. 

The  Iliad. 

Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations. 

Hazlitt's  Life  of  Napoleon. 

Memoirs  of  the  Duchess  Abrantes. 

Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner. 

Byron's  Poems. 

Knight's  History  of  England. 

Charles  O'Malley  and  Tom  Burke 
of  Ours. 

Davis's  Poems,  The  Irish  Patriot. 

Southey's  Life  of  Nelson. 

Orators  of  France. 

Democracy  in  America. 

Chesney's  Military  Biographies. 

Life  of  Marion. 

Antommarchi  Autopsy  on  Napo- 
leon. 


PERSONAL    TRIBUTES 

TO 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS 


"  A  man  there  came — whence  none  could  tell — 

Bearing  a  touchstone  in  his  hand, 
And  by  its  unerring  spell 

Tested  all  things  in  the  land. 
Quick  birth  to  transmutation  smote, 
The  fair  to  foul— the  foul  to  fair- 
Purple  nor  ermine  did  he  spare, 

Nor  scorn  the  dusky  coat." 

If  the  west  ever  produced  a  man  who  got  at  the  heart 
of  things,  that  man  was  John  Edwards.  If  it  has  ever 
produced  a  man  of  purely  chivalric  spirit,  of  high  courage 
and  noble  endeavor,  a  man  who  knew  and  loved  truth  and 
honor  and  uprightness  and  manly  bearing,  who  hated 
shams  and  pretense  and  cant  and  low  cunning,  that  man 
was  John  Edwards.  It  made  no  difference  how  cunning, 
how  deep  the  deception,  how  thick  the  veneering,  he  went 
to  the  core;  and  it  made  no  difference  how  rude  and  rugged 
and  moss-grown  the  rock,  he  found  the  diamond,  and  found 
it  at  the  first  stroke  of  hi  spick.  "  He  was  a  good  judge  of 
a  man."  Made  by  his  early  education  and  association 
somewhat  provincial,  yet  he  wrote  "Bon  Voyage,  Miss 
Nellie,"  and  no  native  born  New  Englander  with  a  tra- 
ditional Mayflower  ancestry  laid  so  pure  and  high  a  tri- 
bute on  the  grave  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  No,  he 
ceased  to  be  provincial  save  when  as  a  partisan  he  was 
"  in  the  saddle  and  moving  things."  A  born  soldier,  he 
knew  intuitively  when  he  was  in  an  impregnable  position 
and  rested  himself,  caught  at  a  glance  the  seam  in  his 
opponent's  armor,  and  in  a  trice  his  sword-point  was 

181 


182  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

through  it.  He  was  "  quick  to  hear  the  clarion  call,  the 
war  steed's  neigh,  the  brave  man's  battle  cry" ;  and  when 
the  call  to  the  rescue  came,  when  battle  had  to  be  made, 
his  voice  was  heard  clearest  and  loudest,  and  at  the  front. 
But,  molded  on  the  heroic  type,  life  to  him  was  always 
heroic;  and  if  disaster  followed,  if  the  battle  had  been 
waged  and  lost,  if  defeat  had  come  to  high  courage,  if 
death  had  laid  his  hand  on  a  man,  or  sorrow  had  so  much 
as  touched  him  with  her  finger,  though  an  enemy,  then  no 
hand  was  laid  more  gently  on  the  wound  than  his,  no  sad- 
der dirge  was  wailed  over  lolanthe's  bier,  and  no  cooing 
mother  ever  crooned  a  sweeter  song  to  soothe  her  fretted 
babe. 

Dying  in  the  prime  of  manhood,  his  life  so  full,  was  yet 
well  rounded  and  complete.  The  concentration  or  fixed- 
ness of  purpose  that  ever  goes  hand  in  hand  with  genius, 
was  always  well  upon  him,  and  carried  him  out  beyond 
the  minor  affairs  of  life.  Great  men  have  great  thoughts 
and  great  purposes,  and  deal  only  with  great  things,  and 
John  Edwards  was  a  great  man.  It  was  of  little  moment 
to  him  whether  his  own  or  his  friend's  garners  were  full, 
but  it  was  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  him  whether  the 
outlook  for  food  for  next  year  was  equal  to  the  needs  of 
the  human  race.  The  broils  of  the  neighborhood  did  not 
attract  him;  but  with  the  eye  of  a  seer  he  watched  night 
and  day  the  movements  on  the  chess-board  of  Europe;  for 
his  own  personal  salvation  he  cared  little,  but  for  the  sal- 
vation of  the  world,  of  whatever  brotherhood  or  creed,  he 
would  have  offered  up  his  own  life.  With  his  broad  liber- 
ality he  sacrificed  personal  gain  to  the  public  weal,  buried 
his  animosities  for  the  good  of  his  cause,  and  buried  his 
cause  for  the  good  of  his  race.  And  yet  this  man,  with  the 
burden  of  a  mission  on  his  shoulders,  who  led  in  the  for- 
lorn  hope,  who  was  full  of  the  wisdom  and  traditions  of  a 
classic  and  heroic  past,  who  dealt  hard  blows  with  his 
sword,  and  wrote  hard  words  with  his  pen,  was  as  simple 
and  modest  as  a  young  girl,  depreciating  his  own  efforts 
and  blushing  to  hear  himself  praised.  In  a  provincial 
town,  there  lived  and  died  a  woman  who  had  barely  reached 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  183 

middle  life.  Standing  by  her  grave,  one  was  struck  by  the 
looks  of  surprise  on  the  iaces  of  those  who  had  gathered 
.to  perform  the  last  sad.  rites.  There  were  Jew  and  Gen- 
tile, saint  and  sinner,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  literary 
club  and  the  unlettered  serving  woman,  the  frocked  priest 
and  non-conformist  clergyman,  the  townspeople  in  coupes 
and  the  country  folk  in  carts,  and  each  creed  and  class  was 
surprised  to  see  the  other,  for  each  thought  she  belonged  to 
itself.  She  belonged  to  none  singly,  but  to  all.  The  in- 
scription on  a  little  monument  near  the  battle  field  of 
Camden  came  to  mind:  "To  the  memory  of  the  noble 
Baron  De  Kalb,  born  in  Germany,  but  a  citizen  of  the 
world."  And  around  the  memory  of  Major  Edwards  has 
again  gathered  the  motley  throng — the  Jew  and  the  Gen- 
tile, the  saint  and  the  sinner,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
literati  and  the  unlettered  laborer,  the  frocked  priest  and 
the  non-conformist,  the  politician  and  the  voter,  the 
townspeople  in  their  coupes  and  the  country  men  in  their 
carts,  the  civilian  and  the  soldier,  and  each  class  and  creed 
is  surprised  to  see  the  others,  and  each  avers  that  he  be- 
longs to  itself;  and  yet  he  belonged  to  no  race  or  class  or 
creed  or  country,  but  to  all,  for  he  was  a  "citizen  of  the 
world."  And  as  each  lays  his  tribute  down,  it  is  but  the 
tribute  to  a  single  side  of  this  many-sided  man. 

Those  who  have  read  "Shelby  and  his  Men/'  who  had 
followed  the  career  of  Major  Edwards  from  1862  through 
the  varied  fortunes  of  the  southern  arms,  until  1865,  when 
all  hope  was  gone,  and  he  and  General  Shelby,  with  a  band 
of  chosen  and  faithful  followers,  pressed  their  way  south- 
ward, swam  the  Rio  Grande  with  their  sabers  between 
their  teeth  and  a  repeater  in  either  hand,  and  laid  their 
swords  at  the  feet  of  the  noble  but  ill-starred  Maximilian 
in  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  imagined  him  to  be  a 
giant  in  stature.  Years  after,  when  that  most  eccentric 
and  phenomenal  character,  Henry  Clay  Dean,  was  on  a 
hurried  visit  to  Kansas  City,  with  but  an  hour  to  spare, 
he  called  at  the  Times  office  for  the  author  of  "  Poor  Car- 
lotta."  When  a  stripling  was  presented  to  him,  he  was  so 
overwhelmed  that  he  dropped  his  valise  and  sat  down.  He 


1C4  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWAKDS. 

staid  three  days,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  an  attachment 
that  only  death  severed.  In  some  respects  this  ponderous 
man  and  the  stripling  were  alike.  Both  knew  how  to  love 
and  how  to  hate;  both  were  classic  in  their  tastes — Dean 
being  not  only,  as  Edwards  was,  an  elegant  and  forcible 
writer,  but  also  a  finished  and  powerful  orator,  which 
Edwards  was  not.  Both  were  poets,  although  neither  ever 
penned  a  rhyme,  and  both  belonged  to  another  age,  or 
rather  were  exponents  of  a  civilization  that  has  passed. 
The  fact  that  nature  reproduces  herself  is  well  attested. 
The  child  of  to-day  resembles  no  living  relative,  but  the 
picture-gallery  reveals  its  prototype.  Is  the  Past  not  jealous 
of  the  Present?  Is  she  not  afraid  of  oblivion?  And  does 
she  not  send  forward,  from  time  to  time,  a  champion  of 
her  sacred  rites  and  customs?  Such  men  are  among  us 
but  not  of  us.  Young  though  they  be,  we  pay  them  the 
reverence  and  respect  that  is  due  to  age.  They  are  some- 
times called,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  reactionists;  but 
they  are  the  true  conservative  element  of  the  times  in  which 
they  live.  The  past  is  known  to  them;  but  the  future, 
save  as  guaged  by  the  past,  is  a  sealed  book.  John  Edwards 
was  such  a  man.  These  men  discover  no  new  continents, 
make  no  revolutions,  scan  innovations  warily,  place  the 
brake  on  the  wheels  of  progress  until  it  is  toned  down  in 
harmony  with  precedent,  and  look  askance  at  the  approach- 
ing stranger;  but  with  things  that  have  been  they  are 
en  rapport.  In  an  inconstant  present  they  are  the  faithful 
custodians  of  "  the  sacred  things — the  protecting  statutes 
and  the  sacred  fires/'  They  are  no  John  the  Baptists, 
proclaiming  a  new  era,  but  Aarons,  faithful  to  their  charge 
of  keeping  the  fires  burning  on  the  altars  and  keeping 
pure  the  records  of  the  dead.  They  know  nothing  of  barter 
or  trade  or  of  commerce,  and  demand  all  things  of  all  men 
for  the  common  weal.  Their  lives  are  heroic  lives,  and 
there  is  not  a  chronicle  of  valor,  of  sacrifice,  of 
stout  endeavor,  of  manly  daring,  of  patient  waiting,  that 
is  not  at  their  fingers'  ends:  nor  a  ballad  of  love  or  war 
that  is  not  familiar  to  their  ears.  With  the  gross  and 
earthly  they  have  nothing  in  common,  but  with  love,  with 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  185 

devotion,  with  honor,  with  sacrifice,  their  hearts  beat  in 
unison.  They  do  not  love  D'Aramis,  the  shrewd,  recalci- 
trant priest;  but  Athos,  the  chivalric,  the  gentle  man  of 
honor,  the  pure  nobleman;  Porthos,  the  burly  Porthos, 
with  his  lumbering  gait,  his  loud  voice,  and  his  ponderous 
fist,  and  his  huge  shoulders  that  held  up  the  arch  of  stone 
to  his  own  undoing;  and  D'Artagnan,  the  wild,  royster- 
iug,  loyal  "  fighting  sword  blade."  Ah!  these  are  men  of 
their  kidney.  Such  men  emancipate  their  heroes  of  their 
day,  and  habilitate  them  in  the  forms  of  the  past.  If 
John  Edwards  sometimes  glorified  men  that  we  all  could 
not  glorify,  it  was  no  fault  of  his.  Such  deeds  and  valor 
as  he  sang  in  poetry  and  song,  Sir  Walter  Scott  sang  in 
poetry  and  song,  and  Victor  Hugo  sang  in  poetry  and 
song,  and  Alexander  Dumas  sang  in  poetry  and  song.  If 
some  of  these  men  interrupted  traffic  and  failed  to  be 
conventional  as  to  the  rights  of  holding  certain  trusts, 
Ich  Van  Dor,  Eobin  Hood,  and  other  favorite  heroes  of. 
ours,  created  the  same  social  disturbances  in  their  day  and 
generation;  yet  they  are  none  the  less  heroes  to  us;  more, 
these  men  had  once  been  his  followers  and  comrades  in 
scenes  and  hours  that  he  so  graphically  paints  in  his 
loving  tribute  to  George  Winship:  "  By  lonesome  road- 
sides, in  the  thickets  at  night,  when  the  weird  laughter  of 
the  owl  was  as  the  voice  of  the  fabled  choosers  of  the 
slain,  crying  out  unto  voice  the  roll  of  the  dead,  who  were 
to  die  on  the  morrow  for  God  and  the  confederacy;  in  the 
hot  lit  foreground  of  many  a  stormy  battle-day,  men's 
lives  falling  off  from  either  flank  of  it  like  snow;  in  many 
a  lonesome  bivouac,  when  winter  and  hunger,  as  twin 
furies  of  civil  war,  flew  over  the  sleeping  camp  together; 
in  many  a  desperate  border  raid,  where  the  wounded  had 
no  succor  and  the  dead  no  sepulchre;  in  far  off  and  half- 
forgotten  foreign  lands,  where  the  flag  that  floated  above 
them  was  a  black  flag,  and  the  comrades,  who  broke  their 
bread  and  shared  their  blankets,  knew  nothing  of  their 
name,  their  speech,  their  life,  their  race,  their  creed,  their 
country."  To  a  man  of  his  temperament,  this  was  a 
baptism  of  fire  and  a  consecration  to  brotherhood  that 


136  JOHN   NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

only  death  could  dissolve.  Men  who  followed  him 
through  such  hours  as  these  were  as  much  his  brothers  as 
if  they  had  been  taken  from  his  own  mother's  womb. 
Was  the  author  of  "  Poor  Carlotta"  a  poet?  Of  the  very 
highest  type;  a  poet  without  effort  and  without  knowing 
that  he  was  a  poet.  It  has  been  repeatedly  said  that 
Victor  Hugo  was  his  model.  This  is  doubtful.  While  he 
is  terse,  pointed,  and  rapid,  after  the  style  of  Hugo,  yet 
this  is  due  more  to  the  nature  and  manner  of  the  man 
himself  than  to  an  effort  to  copy.  Major  Edwards  was 
not  a  robust  man,  physically,  was  of  a  highly  nervous 
organization,  and  his  quick,  pithy,  pointed  style  was 
unavoidable.  For  a  man  of  his  physique  and  few  years 
he  did  an  immense  amount  of  work,  and  work  of  the  kind 
that  he  did  may  not  mean  effort,  but  it  meant  high 
tension,  and  high  tension  means  exhaustion,  and 
exhaustion  means,  if  a  man  goes  on,  "  The  silver  thread 
be  loosed,  or  the  golden  bowl  be  broken,  or  the  pitcher  be 
broken  at  the  fountain;  or  the  wheel  be  broken  at  the 
cistern." 

To  what  a  region  of  elevation  he  lifts  one,  and  at  a 
bound — an  optimist  of  the  purest  type.  He  had  his  dark 
and  dreary  hours  when  life  sat  heavily  upon  him;  but  gen- 
erally the  sun  was  shining,  and  the  birds  were  singing  in 
the  trees,  and  the  flowers  were  in  bloom.  If  he  wrote  of 
battlements  and  turrets,  and  waving  banners  and  horse- 
men in  armor  and  sword  and  buckler,  the  sun  always 
illumed  the  turrets  and  reflected  itself  back  from  the 
burnished  shields  and  gleaming  sword-blades.  How  he 
loved  the  beautiful  and  the  bright  and  the  grand;  and 
rapidly  passed  before  his  eyes  visions  of  noble  men  and 
stately  dames,  strong  castles,  and  fair  women,  and  tall 
knights  with  clanking  swords,  and  "all  quality,  pride, 
pomp  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war."  In  the  close  of 
his  tribute  to  young  Winship,  how  nearly  he  foretold  his 
own  taking  off:  "That  pitiless  disease  which  neither 
stayed  nor  sorrowed  a  moment  in  its  work,  which  knew 
nothing  of  the  splendid  past  of  the  gentle  young  hero, 
which  counted  for  naught  the  five  precious  scars  on  his 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  187 

poor,  wasted  body,  which  would  not  lengthen  his  life  a 
single  hour  by  receiving  in  propitiation  all  the  days  he  had 
marched  without  food,  and  all  the  nights  he  slept  without 
blankets,  and  so  it  seized  him  as  he  stood  grave  and  brave 
and  calm  to  the  last  and  carried  him  away  to  where  the 
dark  ?"  Eead  in  the  answer  the  simple  confession  of 
faith,  not  strictly  orthodox  from  the  point  of  the 
"straighest  sect,"  but  still  a  confession  solacing  to  the 
friends  who  knew  and  loved  him,  a  confession  that  any 
noble  woman  or  brave  man  may  repeat  and  which  will 
remain  an  ever-blooming  flower  upon  his  grave.  "Ah, 
no  !  Sincerity  must  be  religion.  Over  beyond  the  river 
called  Jordan  there  must  be  growing  trees,  and  running 
rivers,  and  fragrant  fields,  called  the  sweet  fields  of  Eden 
for  all  who  on  this  side  the  sunset  shore  fought  or  bled  or 
died  for  king  or  cause  or  creed  or  country.  Heroism  is 
a  consecration  to  God,  and  death  because  of  it  but  a  going 
to  God.  Over  there  surely  the  soldier  is  gently  dealt 
with.  If  he  was  brave  in  life,  and  noble  and  courteous 
and  generous  and  merciful,  he  had  the  attributes  which 
certainly  could  make  a  heaven,  and,  therefore,  this  one 
dead  to-day  and  buried  within  the  historic  soil  of  Jackson 
was  foreordained  to  happiness  after  death.  It  may  be  late 
in  coming;  the  bivouac  may  be  right  cold  and  dreary  for 
many  a  one  yet  who  has  to  pass  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  and  over  the  river  called  death;  and  after  the 
night  the  morning,  and  after  the  judgment  day  the  New 
Jerusalem." 

BRUMMELL  JONES. 

From  HON.  SAMUEL  J.  RANDALL. 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  U.  S.         ) 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  May  12,  1889.  J 

COLONEL  MUNFOHD: 

My  Dear  Sir — Permit  me  to  express  to  you  my 
sincere  sorrow  at  the  sudden  death  of  J.  N.  Edwards.  He 
was  a  warm  and  true  friend  of  mine,  and  I  tried  to  be  his 
whenever  occasion  offered.  His  excellent  judgment  and 


188  '       JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

splendid  mental  accomplishments  are  a  loss  which,  in 
common  with  the  good  people  of  Missouri,  I  deeply  deplore. 
Yours  truly, 

SAMUEL  J.  KANDALL. 

From  A  FEDERAL  SOLDIER. 

LAS  CRUCES,  N.  M.,  June  1,  1889. 
Dr.  MORRISON  MUNFORD: 

My  Dear  Sir — Since  talking  with  you  I  was  suddenly 
called  here  by  telegram,  and  may  not  return  to  Kansas 
City  for  several  days  yet.  Thinking  perhaps  Mrs. 
Edwards  might  desire  the  "New  Year,"  the  wondrously 
beautiful  creation  of  Major  Edwards,  of  which  I  spoke  to 
you  before  my  return,  I  inclose  it  herewith.  You  will 
have  to  handle  it  carefully,  as  I  have  carried  it  with  me 
over  many  miles  of  weary  travel,  and  for  many  long  years. 
I  have  read  it  to  many  men — to  friends  and  strangers, — and 
it  always  excites  unbounded  admiration.  It  is  a  short  little 
piece,  takes  but  little  space,  but  I  know  of  no  living  man 
who  could  write  it  or  speak  it  as  an  original  production. 
Nor  does  my  reading  tell  me  of  any  of  the  dead  who  could 
write  such  an  article  but  John  N.  Edwards  and  Victor 
Hugo. 

I  loved  Edwards  before  I  had  ever  seen  him,  just  from 
reading  his  wonderful  productions,  and  after  seeing  him 
and  becoming  acquainted  with  him  I  only  loved  him 
more  intensely.  May  God  bless  his  wife  and  children  and 
raise  up  kindly  friends  to  love  and  care  for  and  protect 
them.  Very  sincerely  yours, 

JAMES  K.  WADDILL. 

GENERAL  SHELBY'S  TRIBUTE. 

BUTLER,  Mo.,  May  7,  1889. 

General  Jo  Shelby  was  found  by  the  Times'  corre- 
spondent at  hie  home,  eighteen  miles  northwest  of  here, 
to-day.  "  The  news  of  Major  Edward's  death  was  a  great 
shock  to  me,"  said  the  General.  "  I  have  known  him 
and  loved  him  since  he  was  a  boy.  It  is  hardly  within 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  189 

the  power  of  language  to  portray  or  describe  Major 
Edwards  as  his  noble  character  merits.  God  never 
created  a  more  noble,  magnanimous;  and  truer  man  than 
John  N.  Edwards.  When  the  war  broke  out  he  threw 
himself  into  the  conflict  with  all  the  ardor  of  his  warm 
nature,  and  during  the  long,  bloody  struggle,  he  was  ever 
loyally  devoted  to  the  cause  he  championed. 

The  following  is  from  General  J.  C.  Jamison,  late 
Adjutant-General  of  the  State : 

GUTHRIE,  to.  TER.,  May  7,1889. 
DR.  MORRISON"  MUNFORD  : 

My  Dear  Doctor — The  saddest  thing  I  ever  re*ad  in 
your  great  newspaper  was  the  death  of  my  beloved  friend, 
Major  John  N.  Edwards.  No  death  ever  fell  with  such 
poignant  grief  or  affected  me  so  deeply  as  his.  I  first 
knew  him  when  the  fortunes  of  war  threw*  us  together 
in  the  same  prison  at  Johnson's  Island,  in  1863.  The 
friendship  there  formed  only  grew  stronger  as  time 
went  on,  and  only  a  few  weeks  ago,  in  Jefferson  City, 
we  spent  an  afternoon  reviewing  the  past  and  discussing 
the  future.  He  possessed  a  heart  big  enough  to  take 
in  the  whole  of  humanity,  and  this  problem  was  often 
the  theme  of  discussion.  His  generosity  was  only 
bounded  by  h.is  ability  to  minister  to  the  unfortunate. 
His  was  the  most  lovable  character  I  ever  knew. 
His  heroism  in  times  of  danger  was  absolutely  the 
sublimest  thing  I  ever  saw.  He  seemed  to  lose  his  per- 
sonal identity  as  the  danger  grew  more  imminent,  and 
only  thought  of  the  safety  of  his  men  and  his  beloved 
commander.  But  I  did  not  start  out  to  write  of  his 
personal  traits  of  character,  but  to  say  that  I  had  the 
honor,  as  the  editor  of  the  Clarksville  (Mo.)  Sentinel,  to 
publish  the  first,  and,  I  believe,  the  only  real  story  ever 
written  by  him — entitled  "Guy  Lancaster,"  the  scene 
being  laid  in  Virginia.  This  romance  was  published  in 
1867,  1868,  1869,  and  the  papers  containing  it  are  bound 
in  book-form,  and  are  in  my  library  at  Jefferson  City. 
May  the  clods  rest  lightly  over  the  body  of  our  friend. 

J.  C.  JAMISON. 


190  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

From  JUDGE  WILLIAM  YOUNG,  OF  LEXINGTON. 

When  affairs  are  moving  along  their  usual  course 
within  well-marked  boundaries,  and  the  spectacle  of  life 
is  made  up  of  the  commonplace,  struggles  of  men  for 
money,  place  and  power  ;  when  no  great  issue  presents  its 
uncompromising  front ;  when  public  matters  lie  quiet 
under  the  ferment  of  individual  interests ;  when  the  steady 
grind  of  greed  is  going  on,  then  men  take  value  and 
become  important  in  proportion  to  the  sum  of  their  accumu- 
lations. But  let  there  come  a  shock  ;  let  all  the  lines  be 
broken,  and  the  plain  boundaries  be  destroyed  ;  let  a  crisis 
approach,  and  danger  threaten  ;  let  affairs  present  a  prob- 
lem that  can  not  be  solved  by  the  ordinary  rules  of  action; 
let  dread  and  doubt  and  uncertainty  prevail,  and  then  it  is 
that  men  arie  rated  for  themselves  alone,  and  borrow  no 
value  from  mere  possessions.  In  such  times,  there  are 
men  toward  whom  all  eyes  are  turned  in  expectancy,  and 
to  catch  the  sound  of  whose  voices  all  ears  are  strained. 
Not  because  they  are  always  correct,  or  to  be  implicitly 
followed  ;  not  because  of  supernatural  wisdom,  or  unerring 
judgment,  but  because  of  their  clear  convictions  of  right, 
their  supreme  unselfishness,  their  complete  fearlessness, 
their  absolute  sincerity,  their  hatred  of  shams,  and  their 
unfailing  faithfulness.  ^ 

There  was  erstwhile  one  such  man  in  Missouri  who  is 
now  no  more.  There  was  one  such  voice  that  is  silent 
now.  John  N.  Edwards  is  dead  ! 

Imbued  with  passions  hot  and  strong,  gifted  with  a 
fiery  and  heroic  genius,  endowed  with  dauntless  courage, 
yet  tempered  all  by  a  most  generous  disposition  and  the 
tenderest  of  hearts,  he  was  a  rare  man,  whose  like  we  shall 
scarcely  see  again. 

Coming  up  into  manhood  on  the  eve  of  a  mighty  revo- 
lution, his  high  spirit  reveled  in  the  political  excitement 
of  the  times,  when  words  were  things,  and  every  act  of 
vital  consequence,  and  method  of  expression  never  lost  the 
glow  caught  from  the  fires  of  insurrection  and  war. 

This  most  romantic  and  chivalrous  of  souls  was  placed 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  191 

by  fortune  in  the  very  position  that  enabled  him  to  see 
and  know  more  of  the  romantic  realities  of  the  war  than 
perhaps  any  man  now  living  in  Missouri. 

As  the  companion  of  Shelby,  during  all  the  while  that 
phenomenal  cavalryman  was  rising  from  the  rank  of  cap- 
tain to  that  of  major-general,  he  was  an  active  participant 
in  all  of  the  thrilling  scenes  enacted  then. 

The  secrets  of  nearly  every  one  of  the  daring  expedi- 
tions from  that  part  of  the  Confederate  forces  were  con- 
fided to  him.  His  council  was  sought,  and  his  assistance 
invoked  on  the  eve  of  every  wild  scheme  of  reprisal,  or 
about  all  of  those  enterprises  that  depended  for  success  on 
the  personal  bravery  of  the  participants.  He  was  the 
trusted  confidant  of  every  reckless,  desperate,  restless 
spirit  that  sought  danger  in  the  front,  by  charge,  or  arti- 
fice, or  strategern;  or  that  waged  the  mad,  wild  war  of 
personal  hate  far  in  the  lines  of  the  enemy.  His  was  a 
nature  that  invited  confidence.  He  was  burdened  with 
more  vital  secrets  affecting  the  credit,  life,  and  honor  of 
others  than  any  other  man  perhaps  in  all  of  the  land.  In 
it  all,  how  truly,  purely,  perfectly  faithful  he  was. 

Such  a  life,  with  such  a  nature,  could  not  fail  to  pro- 
duce a  rare  combination — a  strange  blending  of  contra- 
dictory characteristics. 

Inured  to  scenes  of. carnage,  and  realizing  from  experi- 
ence how  great  the  sacrifices  necessary  to  victory,  and  how 
sternly  regardless  of  individuals  he  must  be  who  would 
conquer,  in  the  height  of  his  absorbing  devotion  to  the 
cause  he  espoused,  he  called,  with  clarion  voice  and  smok- 
ing pen,  upon  the  leaders  of  his  cause  for  the  most  extraor- 
dinary, heroic,  and  relentless  policy;  but  for  all  this  he 
himself  would  have  lost  the  most  important  battle,  or 
yielded  the  fruits  of  the  greatest  victory,  before  he  would 
have  trampled  upon  the  prostrate  form  of  a  brave  but  help- 
less and  unresisting  foe.  An  enthusiast  in  politics,  and 
the  advocate  of  the  severest  party  discipline,  amounting 
to  the  utter  ostracism  of  the  delinquents,  yet  all  was 
excused,  and  all  condoned  by  the  slightest  extenuating 
circumstance  or  at  the  first  intimation  of  regret. 


192  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Ambitious  to  an  unwonted  degree,,  he  sought  no  position, 
held  back  by  his  exquisite  consideration  for  some  friend 
whose  cause  he  was  always  ready  to  espouse  with  a  per- 
fectly unselfish  devotion. 

Detesting  the  falseness  and  meanness  and  sordidness  of 
humanity,  he  was  wont  to  lash  and  scourge  it  with  almost 
frenzied  indignation  and  disgust,  and  yet  he  loved  all  man- 
kind, one  by  one. 

There  were  none  high  enough  to  excite  his  envy  or 
command  his  adulation,  so  there  were  none  so  low  as  to 
escape  his  sympathy. 

His  friendship  was  marvelously  true.  It  was  the  rul- 
ing trait  of  his  character.  Especially  was  this  the  case 
with  those  who  had  been  with  him  in  the  stirring  scenes 
of  war.  His  devotion  to  these  became  a  part  of  his  being, 
and  neither  poverty,  nor  disgrace,  nor  crime  even,  could 
separate  his  regard  from  them.  He  found  an  excuse  for 
all  of  their  faults,  and  served  them  with  untiring  faithful- 
ness through  all  circumstances. 

With  him  to  be  once  a  friend  was  to  oe  always  such, 
and  to  him  the  voice  of  distressed  friendship  was  as  the 
voice  of  God. 

It  was  as  a  newspaper  writer'  that  the  public  knew  him 
best,  and  in  this  capacity  he  held  a  place  second  to  none 
in  Missouri  in  influence. 

Whenever  he  wrote,  and  on  whatever  subject,  his  mind 
seemed  crowded  with  poetical  figures  and  apt  illustra- 
tions, mostly  of  a  heroic  cast,  suggested  by  his  experience 
as  a  soldier,  or  drawn  from  the  thrilling  records  of  chiv- 
alry. The  most  trivial  incident,  apparently,  assumed  at 
times  to  his  many-sided  mind  an  aspect  of  momentous 
importance,  and,  under  his  wonderful  word-painting,  took 
on  such  colors  as  to  attract  the  eyes  of  the  nation. 

But  it  was  upon  the  happening  of  some  great  calamity, 
or  the  occurrence  of  some  incident  of  unusual  impor- 
tance, or  the  approach  of  a  political  crisis,  and  especially 
an  appearance  of  a  wavering  in  the  ranks  of  his  party, 
that  his  heroic  genius  shone  out  in  full  splendor.  Then 
it  was  that,  with  a  pen  tipped  as  it  were  with  fire,  he  wrote 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  193 

words  tliat  burned  into  the  hearts  of  his  readers;  then  it 
was  that  the  lightning  of  his  genius  flashed  out  and  lit  up 
the  whole  social  or  political  horizon,  and  the  reverberating 
thunder  of  his  utterances  startled  the  sleeper  and  the 
unconcerned. 

On  every  occasion  of  unusual  popular  interest,  for  the 
last  twenty  years  or  more,  while  agitation  and  dissention 
was  going  on  over  some  proposed  action,  his  earnest,  manly 
sentiments  were  the  inspiration  of  many  a  worker,  and  his 
sublime  courage  gave  confidence  to  many  a  doubter. 

Bat  it  was  when  argument  and  counsel  had  culminated 
on  some  decisive  action,  and  an  appeal  made  to  the  coun- 
try for  a  verdict  thereon,  that  his  rallying  cry  was  most 
eagerly  listened  for. 

In  all  of  this  time  there  has  been  no  crisis  in  the 
affairs  of  his  party,  whether  arising  from  internal  dissen- 
tions,  political  defection,  or  rival  strength,  that  every  Dem- 
ocrat in  this  section  has  not  hastened  to  read  what  he  might 
write  upon  the  subject.  This  was  not  on  account  of  a 
belief  in  his  infallible  judgement,  although  he  was  quick 
to  discern  and  just  to  discriminate.  It  wasnot  on  account 
of  implicit  confidence  in  his  vast  political  wisdom,  although 
he  had  an  intuitive  knowledge  of  men  and  a  genius  for 
politics.  It  was  not  on  account  of  his  splendid  periods 
and  fervid  bursts  of  eloquence,  although  in  these  he  had 
scarcely  a  rival.  It  was  because  friend  and  foe  alike 
knew  that  his  was  the  expression  of  a  fearless,  true,  incor- 
ruptible man  ;  that,  however  mistaken,  he  believed  as  he 
wrote,  with  all  his  heart  and  mind,  with  a  belief  as  sub- 
lime as  his  courage.  He  might  not  solve  the  problem, 
but  he  always  exposed  the  difficulty.  His  passions  or 
affections  might  cause  him  to  err  in  position,  but  he 
always  struck  to  the  point,  and  no  hero  or  chivalry  ever 
pointed  his  lance  with  truer  aim  at  the  center  of  his 
enemy's  shield  than  did  he.  No  paladin  in  battle  ever 
charged  with  less  regard  for  consequences  to  himself  than 
did  this  Murat  of  Missouri  journalism  on  the  political 
field. 

His  influence   over   thousands   in   Missouri   and   else- 


194  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

where  was  unbounded.  There  were,  and  are,  many  who 
not  only  listened  eagerly  for  his  voice,  but,  having  heard  it, 
all  controversy  with  them  was  at  an  end. 

Over  many  who  had  no  personal  acquaintance  with 
him  this  influence  of  his  was  exerted. 

It  was  not  his  eloquence,  or  his  fire,  or  his  courage 
that  captivated  them.  It  was  asomething  running  through 
all  that  he  did  or  said;  that  looked  out  of  his  eyes,  that 
sounded  in  his  voice,  that  appeared  between  the  lines  of 
all  he  ever  wrote.  It  was  as  imperceptible  as  a  spirit  to 
the  common  eye,  but  making  its  presence  felt  upon  kin- 
dred spirits.  It  was  that,  back  of  genius  and  education 
and  culture,  vitalizing  and  inspiring  all,  there  was,  as  the 
chief  part  of  his  being,  physically,  mentally,  and  spiritu- 
ally, a  gushing,  throbbing,  warm,  true  Great  Heart. 

And  now  we  are  to  write  that  this  great  heart  has 
ceased  to  beat.  In  the  quiet  cemetery,  near  the  little 
town  of  Dover,  his  still  and  silent  form  has  been  laid  away 
until  the  great  day  of  resurrection. 

The  green  grass  waves  gently  over  him,  and  from  the 
neighboring  wood  the  sound  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  low. 

Sleep  on,  great  heart!  Thou  art  done  with  earth  and 
its  sorrows  and  joys,  its  victories  and  defeats,  its  sins  and 
virtues.  Many  of  thy  comrades  have  gone  before.  A 
few  years  more  and  the  last  one  will  cross  over  to  thee. 
But  while  we  live,  aye,  while  our  children  and  children's 
children  live,  there  shall  never  a  deed  of  daring,  or  an  act 
of  devoted  friendship,  such  as  thou  didst  love  to  hear  of 
and  do,  be  performed,  but  that  the  telling  of  it  shall  bring 
thee  fresh  to  mind,  and  so  all  the  heroism  of  the  land  shall 
help  to  keep  thy  memory  green. 

Sleep  on,  great  heart!  Thougn  there  shall  be  sighs  and 
prayers  and  "tears  and  breaking  hearts  for  thee,"  thou 
shalt  never  more  feel  a  kindred  woe. 

Sleep  on,  great  heart!  Thine  enemies  are  powerless  to 
do  thee  harm.  For  when  detraction,  and  envy,  and  hate, 
and  all  uncharitableness  have  done  their  worst,  and  heaped 
upon  thy  grave  all  of  thy  weaknesses  and  thine  errors, 
thy  follies  and  thy  sins,  we  might  admit  them  all,  but  we 


PERSONAL  TRIBUTES.  195 

will  bring  such  a  multitude  of  thy  merits,  thy  countless 
kindly  acts  so  secretly  done,  thy  devotedness  to  friends 
who  owe  thee  all,  thy  generosity  to  foes  now  turned  to 
friends,  thine  undaunted  courage,  thy  perfect  sincerity, 
thy  noble  unselfishness,  and  thine  undying  faithfulness 
though  thyself  hath  died,  and  lay  them,  too,  upon  thy  rest- 
ing place,  until  when  the  angels  look  down  from  heaven 
they  will  see  only  the  mountain  of  thy  virtues,  under 
whose  towering  height  all  of  thine  imperfections  are  com- 
pletely hid  from  sight. 

Sleep  on,  great  heart!  Love  is  stronger  than  hate. 
Where  one  shall  blame  a  hundred  more  shall  praise — 
where  one  condemn  a  thousand  shall  pay  you  tribute  of 
undying  love. 

Love  shall  stand  guard  for  thee, 

Friends  without  number, 
Bereaved  and  disconsolate  over  thee  weep: 

Sweet  be  thy  dreams, 
Untroubled  thy  slumber; 

Tranquilly,  peacefully,  resifully  sleep. 

Y. 


NEWSPAPER   TRIBUTES. 


MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Kansas  City  Times,  May  5, 1889.] 

No  pen  but  his  own  should  write  of  a  nature  like  that  of  the 
brilliant  journalist  who  died  yesterday  at  Jefferson  City  The  spiiit 
of  Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  justly  measured  in  the  hearts  of  a 
thousand  men  who  knew  him  on  the  battlefield  and  in  the  intellect- 
ual life  of  later  years,  but  to  interpret  it  in  words  is  beyond  any  one 
who  has  not  his'richness  of  flashing  phrase,  his  warm  love  of  the 
great  and  the  beautiful  and  his  constant  study  of  the  best  literary 
models.  And  who  has  those  resources,  or  who  has  the  charity  of 
soul,  the  tender  sympathy,  the  insight  into  the  subtler  beauties  of 
humanity  and  nature?  Not  one.  Yet  friendship  will  not  allow  the 
first  opportunity  to  pass  for  telling  the  world,  however  poorly,  \\  hat 
a  noble  man  has  departed. 

Filling  a  part  in  the  intense  commercial  life  of  the  West,  Major 
Edwards  had  no  thought  of  money  except  to  regret  that  he  had  nut 
more  when  he  wished  to  help  a  fellow  man.  In  an  age  of  ephem- 
eral literature  he  had  no  literary  passion  except  for  the  great  masters, 
and  if  his  all  embracing  charity  preserved  a  patience  with  the  slight 
performances  of  the  day,  his  unspoiled  taste  saved  him  frc  m  either 
admiration  or  imitation.  Absorbing  from  his  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  masters  of  all  nations,  a  vast  amount  of  knowledge,  he 
formed  a  style  all  his  own,  and  for  twenty  years  he  has  had  a  circle 
of  readers  wider  than  that  gathered  around  any  contemporary  Amer- 
ican journalist.  The  chivalric  spirit  of  the  man,  his  bountiful  vocab- 
ulary, his  singular  faculty  for  imaginative  illustration,  his  habii  of 
instantly  striking  at  the  heart  of  a  subject  and  his  skill  in  changing 
from  the  simplest  of  prose  to  the  dramatic  or  poetic,  as  the  phases 
of  his  thought  suggested,  invested  his  writing  with  an  individually 
and  charm  which  every  one  of  the  readers  in  the  circle  recognized 
at  a  glance.  As  the  soldier  boys  were  cheered  and  held  to  their 
cause  by  his  brave  example  in  the  weary  days  at  the  close  of  the 
war,  his  friends — and  all  the  readers  were  his  friends — were  held  to 
their  political  allegiance,  to  their  faith  in  ideals  and  works,  \vhtn 
the  mistakes  and  misfortunes  incident  to  most  human  affairs  threat- 
ened disorganization  and  dispersion.  The  measure  of  hisservk-<s 
to  his  party  and  to  all  other  good  causes  which  he  made  his  own  can 
never  be  taken,  because  there  neither  is  or  can  be  a  record  of  such 
efforts. 

Thinkers  enough  there  are  and  trained  writers,  but  who  like 
him  can  clothe  every  thought  in  shining  raiment?  Who  has  for 
every  abstraction  its  symbol,  and  for  every  feeling  its  signet?  Who 
knows  the  ways  to  the  core  of  mankind's  heart  as  he  "did  andean 
utter  the  word  which  makes  it  palpitate  as  he  could?  Moreover,  is 
there  another  who  possesses  men's  affections  to  such  a  degree  auiLhas 

196 


NEWSPAPElt  TRIBUTES.  197 

drawn  on  them  so  little.  In  all  his  life  he  never  sought  to  advance 
himself.  With  all  his  abundant  abilities  he  never  boasted  that  he 
could  do  anything.  With  a  courage  so  immaculate  that  it  was  a 
proverb,  he  was  the  man  gentlest  in  speech  and  most  lovable  in 
nature  in  whatever  community  he  lived. 

Mujor  Edwards  was  a  hero  worshiper  in  the  noblest  sense.  He 
worshiped  great  qualities  and  reveled  in  watching  the  play  of  mighty 
forces  as  they  wroght  mighty  deeds.  He  never*wearied  of  picturing 
in  his  inimitable  style  the  impact  of  genius  on  history.  Beyond  any 
man  he  had  that 

"Highmindedness,  a  jealousy  for  good, 
A  loving  kindness  for  the  great  man's  fame." 

With  the  poet's  imagination  he  combined  a  remarkable  power 
of  taking  in  a  larger  way  an  estimate  of  actual  movements.  This 
power  was  displayed  again  and  again,  when  but  little  more  than  a 
boy,  in  his  career  as  a  soldier.  Mature  and  able  field  officers  were 
not  ashamed  to  seek  his  advice  and  to  be  guided  by  his  judgment. 
He  displayed  it  with  equal  readiness  as  a  journalist  in  dealing  with 
political  and  social  events.  His  eye  was  never  off  the  game  upon 
the  European  chessboard.  He  followed  the  diplomacy  of  Bismarck 
with  the  same  zest  he  had  for  a  presidential  campaign  in  the  United 
States,  and  he  was  seldom  at  fault  in  foreseeing  the  outcome  of 
either.  Worldly  knowledge,  of  these  national  questions  or  of 
smaller  matters,  never  made  him  cynical.  In  the  highest  or  the 
lowliest  he  saw  virtues  before  faults,  and  if  he  could,  he  would 
evade  seeing  faults  at  all.  To  the  last  his  friendship  was  as  tender 
and  his  sympathy  as  freely  flowing  as  a  girl's.  Enjoying  relations 
of  the  warmest  mutual  esteem  with  many  of  the  most  distinguished 
statesmen  of  the  country,  he  had  an  hour  or  a  day,  if  need  be,  for 
the  humblest  claimant  upon  his  attention. 

Major  Edwards  was  the  first  editor  of  the  Kansas  City  Times 
and  the  last  years  of  his  life  were  also  spent  in  inspiring  its  staff 
with  the  ambition  of  vigorous  journalism.  What  the  host  of  lov- 
ing personal  friends  feel  at  the  loss  of  the  versatile  journalist,  the 
true-hearted  man  and  the  most  loyal  friend  they  could  ever  hope  to 
mett  the  Times  feels  as  a  newspaper.  His  unique  personality  will 
not  be  reproduced  soon  if  ever  in  the  lifetime  of  those  who  have 
knowrn  him.  Besides  the  other  characteristics  and  gifts  which 
excited  such  uncommon  affection,  he  was  one  of  the  rare  beings  of 
whom  it  can  be  said  that  he  never  feit  animosity  except  to  drive 
**  Envy  and  malice  to  their  native  sty." 

Against  those  mean  passions  he  could  lay  his  lance  in  rest 
blithely  and  with  determined  energy.  For  all  else  he  had  forbear- 
ance when  he  could  not  give  praise. 

It  is  not  derogation  to  other  good  and  brave  men  to  say  that  the 
death  of  no  man  in  Missouri  would  cause  genuine  pain  and  grief  to 
so  many  and  so  different  persons  as  that  of  John  N.  Edwards.  Nor 
will  the  memory  of  any  be  so  cherished. 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Kansas  City  Journal-,] 

Elsewhere  the  death  of  Major  Edwrards,  for  more  than  twenty 
years  at  various  times  connected  with  the  press  of  Kansas  City,  is 
announced.  At  this  writing  we  are  not  in  possession  of  the  par- 
ticulars attending  or  preceding  his  decease,  and  it  is  here  we  only 


198  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

desire  to  lay  a  flower  on  the  bier  of  a  child  of  genius,  whose 
life  story  is  as  strange  and  weird  as  the  inspiration  of  his  pen. 

He  was  in  every  respect  the  result  of  birth  and  environment, 
and  never  for  a  day  changed  the  habits  of  thought  in  which  he 
grew  up.  All  this  rush,  bustle  and  change  we  call  modern  prog- 
ress was  a  new  and  strange  world  to  him  and  of  which  he  never 
became  a  part.  His  literary  inspirations  were  those  of  romance 
and  of  the  age  of  romance.  He  was  a  knight  of  the  antique  order, 
and  wrote  of  knights  and  their  ideals.  If  he  ever  drew  upon  the 
more  modern  for  his  chivalric  ideas  it  was  of  the  Napoleon  era  and 
the  ideals  of  the  old  guard.  Some  of  the  finest  pen  pictures  that 
have  graced  contemporary  journalism,  werefromhis  pen,  and  his 
admirers  were  in  larger  number  than  any  of  his  contemporaries. 

We  always  thought  and  often  told  him  that  the  political  news- 
paper was  not  the  field  he  should  have  selected,  as  his  mental  organi- 
zation and  brilliant  word  painting  were  best  suited  to  the  magazine, 
and  it  has  always  been  a  regret  that  he  did  not  choose  that  field. 
His  was  a  singularly  gentle  nature,  and  one  that  knew  no  fault  with 
his  friends  and  brooked  no  criticism  of  those  he  esteemed.  The 
finest  judgment  we  have  ever  heard  passed  upon  him  was  that  he 
was  a  child  of  the  twelfth  century  born  in  the  nineteenth.  It  seems 
extravagant,  but  it  describes  the  peculiar  genius  of  our  dead  friend. 

THE  LATE  JOHN    N.    EDWARDS. 

[Kansas  City  Globe.] 

John  N.  Edwards  died  yesterday.  Throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  this  State  and  scattered  throughout  this  country  are 
men  who  will  grow  sad  as  they  hear  of  his  demise.  Death  silently, 
swiftly  stole  into  the  din  and  clamor  of  the  world  about  him  and 
led  him  away.  Silent  forever  is  the  pen  from  which  eloquence 
always  flamed — a  natural  eloquence  such  as  the  wild  wood  bird 
sings  forth  in  its  morning  carols.  His  characteristic  writings, 
startling  for  their  boldness  and  originality,  stirring  for  their  pathos 
and  genuine  feeling,  piercing  with  sharp  satire  or  soothing  with 
melodious  measures,  emanating  from  a  heart  at  high  tide  until  the 
man  and  his  pen  seemed  one;  will  be  seen  no  more  in  the  press. 
Many  of  his  works  will  be  read  and  re-read — but  most  were  written 
for  the  day  which  is  past.  John  N.  Edwards  is  dead. 

As  for  the  man,  he  was  a  man  indeed.  As  he  wrote  he  spoke, 
he  acted;  he  was  loyal  to  his  friends.  As  softly,  harmoniously, 
sweetly  as  his  measures  formed  themselves  on  paper — for  he  wrote 
in  measures — so  his  generosity  of  heart  and  mind  made  themselves 
felt  to  those  about  him.  Every  time  he  met  a  man  he  made  a  friend. 
He  had  few  enemies  and  even  those  were  compelled  to  admire  him 
for  his  fearlessness. 

A  BRIGHT  AND  SHINING  LIGHT. 

[Kansas  City  Star,  May  4.] 

The  journalistic  profession  has  lost  a  bright  and  shining  light  in 
the  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times, 
who  died  this  morning  at  Jefferson  City,  after  an  illnessof  two  days. 
He  was  barely  fifty  years  of  age,  and  was,  therefore,  in  the  very 
zenith  of  his  intellectual  powers.  As  a  newspaper  maji  he  was  one 
of  the  most  commanding  figures  in  the  West.  He  was  a  writer  of 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  199 

remarkable  vigor,  and  his  style  was  so  picturesque  as  to  invest  his 
work  with  a  thoroughly  distinctive  quality.  He  possessed  a  dra- 
matic power  of  description  which  will  live  in  several  volumes  of 
war  literature  which  he  has  left  as  mementoes  of  his  genius.  He 
loved  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  as  an  able  and  conscientious  expo- 
nent of  public  thought,  it  was  his  high  privilege  to  advance  all  of  the 
interests  of  the  State  of  his  adoption.  His  professional  career  dated 
back  to  the  day  of  small  beginnings  in  the  West,  but  it  covered  a 
period  of  eventful  growth  and  splendid  prosperity.  Personally, 
Major  Edwards  was  one  of  the  kindliest  men  whom  the  State  has 
ever  been  called  upon  to  mourn.  He  loved  his  friends  and  received 
from  them  a  full  requital  of  the  affection  which  he  bestowed  upon 
them.  The  intelligence  of  his  death  will  awaken  tender  and  tearful 
regret  wherever  he  was  known,  and  he  leaves  behind  him  a  memory 
as  fragrant  with  all  the  sweet  amenities  of  life  as  the  flowers  which 
will  be  spread  upon  his  grave. 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[St.  Louis  Republic.'] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  dead.  Missouri  never  had  a  more 
picturesque  figure,  and  there  never  was  a  kinder,  more  generous 
heart  than  his.  Had  he  lived  five  centuries  ago  he  would  have  been 
as  great  and  full  of  honors  as  he  was  noble  in  all  his  instincts,  but 
living  as  he  did  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  his  high 
spirit  simply  fretted  itself  out  against  the  bars  of  a  utilitarian  civili- 
zation. He  was  really  a  poet,  and  nothing  else,  but  the  accident  of 
his  birth  at  a  time  when  the  Civil  War  overtook  him  just  as  his 
mind  was  in  its  formative  period,  made  him  what  Missouri  knew 
him,  a  gallant,  chivalric  soldier,  who  remained  a  soldier  up  to  the 
day  of  his  death.  As  a  journalist  he  never  exercised  any  direct  in- 
fluence; that  is,  he  nearly  always  failed  to  accomplish  what  he  set 
out  to  accomplish.  Indirectly  his  influence  was  wide.  Working 
himself  to  white  heat  wherever  he  saw  or  fancied  he  saw  a  wrong, 
he  struck  off  phrases  like  sparks  from  an  anvil,  and  many  of  these 
phrases  will  survive  him  for  many  decades  after  his  death.  They 
are  used  in  politics  all  over  the  country  by  thousands  who  have  no 
idea  of  their  origin;  who  never  heard  of  Edwards. 

Living  over  and  over  again  in  journalism  and  politics  the  days 
of  wild  dash  when  he  rode  by  the  side  of  General  J.  O.  Shelby,  life 
for  him  was  indeed  a  warfare.  He  had  in  his  head  always  the  jingle 
of  the  spurs  and  the  clashing  of  swords  in  the  old  English  ballads  he 
loved  above  everything.  Victor  Hugo's  Les  Miserables  moved  and 
influenced  him  more  than  all  that  has  been  written  on  government 
and  political  economy. 

He  never  abandoned  a.  friend.  He  had  known  Jesse  and  Frank 
James  when  they  were  boys  during  the  border  war.  Honorable  and 
rigidly  honest  himself,  he  would  have  sacrificed  his  life  and  his 
reputation  rather  than  slight  an  appeal  from  these  hunted  outlaws 
for  shelter.  Loyalty  with  him  was  an  overpowering  instinct— his 
most  marked  trait,  and  he  was  as  gentle  and  unobtrusive  personally 
as  he  was  loyal.  Except  when  thrilled  by  devotion  to  some  cause  or 
other,  he  always  sought  the  background. 

As  a  newspaper  writer,  he  never  sought  to  advance  himself,  but 
always  worked  for  the  advancement  of  others.  His  style  as  a 
writer  was  highly  poetical  and  it  grew  less  effective  in  journalism  as 
his  peculiarities  of  imagination  gained  more  and  more  the  control  of 


200  JOHN  NEWMAN   EDWAliDS. 

his  judgment.  Frequently  when  he  found  a  subject  that  would 
bear  his  style,  his  hurried  productions  had  a  wide  popularity.  An 
article  thus  written  on  the  marriage  of  Nelly  Grant  was  copied 
through  this  country  and  in  Europe,  and  it  is  said  that  it  touched 
General  Grant  deeply.  He  had  the  faults  and  weaknesses  of  an 
impulsive,  poetical  temperament,  and  one  of  these,  growing 
habitual,  marred  his  usefulness.  But  were  all  said  that  could  be 
said  of  his  faults,  it  would  not  weigh  at  all  with  those  who  knew 
him  in  his  gentleness  and  in  his  enthusiasms. 

A  DEAD  JOURNALIST. 

[St.  Louis  Spectator.'] 

In  the  sudden  death  of  Major  J.  N.  Edwards  western  journalism 
has  certainly  lost  one  of  its  most  brilliant  votaries.  His  style  was  at 
once  original,  unique,  and  frequently  startling  and  erratic.  Tender 
and  pathetic  as  no  other  man  could  make  it,  if  sympathy  touched 
his  heart;  every  line  he  ever  wrote  in  memoriam  was  a  poem  in  itself. 
Nurtured  during  the  romance  and  realism  of  war,  his  pen,  as  if 
dipped  in  blood,  followed  the  fierce,  fiery  trail  of  his  thoughts,  if  he 
felt  conscious  a  wrong  had  been  perpetrated  or  an  injustice  done. 
Many  will,  no  doubt,  remember  his  brilliant  and  heroic  fusilade  of 
boiling  fury,  burning  anathemas  and  fierce  denunciations,  which  he 
poured  out  upon  the  perpetrators  of  the  death  of  Jesse  James.  Not 
that  he  in  any  way  approved  the  method  of  the  James  boys,  but 
treachery  to  a  friend -was  with  him  high  treason.  The  following 
tribute  to  the  subject^of  this  sketch  was  written  many  years  ago  from 
Jefferson  City,  the  scene  of  his  death,  by  one  who  knew  him  well: 
' '  He  always  seems  to  be  a  stranger  wherever  he  goes.  Walks  alone, 
seldom  speaks  to  anybody,  and  does  not  smile  three  times  a  day.  He 
is  one  of  the  oddest  and  best  of  men;  has  the  forehead  and  eyes  of  a 
poet,  and  the  nose  and  mouth  of  a  soldier.  Equally  at  home  in  bat- 
tle and  the  flowery  field  of  imagination.  Sad  in  face,  but  glad  in 
heart,  fierce  like  an  eagle,  gentle  as  the  soul  of  a  dove.  One  who 
loves  a  man  for  his  strength  and  a  woman  for  her  neatness.  Noble, 
generous,  child-like  in  simplicity,  but  great  in  mind,  a  journalist,  a 
historian,  and  altogether  one  of  Missouri's  most  illustrious  sons. 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards  carries  off,  suddenly  and 
unexpectedly,  one  of  the  brightest  men  connected  with  the  journal- 
ism of  the  West.  In  the  past  twenty  years  the  pen  of  Major 
Edwards  has  given  point  and  brilliancy  to  half  a  dozen  newspapers 
of  the  State — in  St.  Louis,  in  St.  Joseph,  in  Sedalia  and  in  Kansas 
City.  He  had  wonderful  power  of  expression  and  description,  and 
his  mind  was  an  arsenal  of  facts  gathered  from  extensive  reading 
and  garnered  in  a  retentive  memory.  He  wrote  always  on  the 
side  of  his  earnest  convictions,  and  hence  was  often  out  of  accord 
with  the  Democratic  party,  to  which  he  belonged,  although  his 
variences  were  generally  as  to  men  rathrr  than  as  to  principles. 
He  was  an  honorable  as  well  as  a  forcible  opponent  in  debate,  and 
always  kept  within  the  lines  of  strict  decorum  in  the  discussion  of 
public  questions.  He  will  be  greatly  missed  from  the  field  of  news- 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  201 

paper  controversy,  and  lie  will  leave  behind  him  a  vacancy  which 
will  not  soon  be  tilled. 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[The  Journalist,  New  York.] 

The  death  of  the  veteran  journalist,  John  N.  Edwards,  who 
died  in  Jefferson  City,  Mo.;  recently,  takes  from  the  ranks  of  journal- 
ism one  of  its  oldest  members  and  ablest  writers. 

His  writing  had  a  peculiar  charm.  His  style  was  all  his  own.  He 
wrote  wholly  in  prose,  and  put  the  most  cogent  argument  in  music 
that  charmed  the  ear  while  it  convinced  the  reason.  Th.e  writings 
of  no  living  journalist  had  a  more  distinct  and  striking  personality 
Ha  never  wrote  a  line  that  was  not  interesting,  nor  a  sentence  that 
it  was  not  a  pleasure  to  read.  His  editorial  writing  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  country.  It  was  inimitable  and  unequaled. 

Major  Edwards  was  a  commanding  figure  in  Missouri  politics. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  of  him  that  he  had  more  warm  personal 
friends  than  any  man  in  the  State.  Yet  while  always  taking  an 
active  part  in  politics  he  was  never  a  candidate  for  office,  and  would 
never  listen  to  any  suggestions  that  he  should  become  one'.  He  was 
the  leading  figure  in  the  tight  which  resulted  in  Senator  Vest's  first 
election,  when  he  beat  Samuel  Glover,  the  father  of  the  present 
ex- Congressman  of  St.  Louis.  The  Missouri  Republican  made  a  bit- 
tit ;  fight  against  Vest,  and  after  he  was  elected  the  Globe-Democrat, 
editorially,  gave  Major  Edwards  the  credit  for  electing  him.  It  was 
conceded  at  the  time  that  he  did  more  than  any  other  one  man  to 
bring  about  the  result.  His  personal  influence  was  remarkable. 
The  friends  that  he  made  were  devoted,  and  would  go  to  any  length 
to  accommodate  him  He  supported  Governor  Crittenden  in  hiscon- 
test  against  General  Marmaduke,  but  was  a  warm  supporter  of  Gen- 
eral Marmaduke  in  the  campaign  which  resulted  in  his  nomination. 
He  never  used  his  influence  for  his  own  advancement,  but  was  always 
generous  in  his  endeavors  for  the  success  of  his  friends.  Had  his 
political  ambition  run  in  the  line  of  office-seeking  there  islittledoubt 
that  he  could  have  had  anything  in  the  gift  of  the  people.  There  was 
probably  more  genuine  regard  and  warm  personal  feeling  for  him 
than  for  any  man  who  ever  took  a  prominent  part  in  State  politics. 

The  death  of  no  man  in  Missouri  was  ever  mournod  more  sin* 
cerely  than  the  death  of  Major  Edwards  will  be.  Everybody  who 
knew  him  loved  him.  The  attachments  which  he  created  were 
remarkable.  No  one  ever  became  acquainted  with  him  without 
becoming  warmly  attached  to  him.  In  conversation  and  manner  he 
was  as  gentle  and  modest  as  a  woman  He  was  uniformly  courteous 
and  kind.  With  him  rank  was  but  the  guinea's  stamp.  He  judged 
men  on  their  merits,  and  the  man  poor  in  money  and  fame  received 
the  same  considerate  treatment  that  would  have  been  accorded  a  mil- 
lionaire or  the  President.  His  nature  was  a  peculiarly  lovable  one, 
and  his  friends  entertained  a  warm  affection  for  him  seldom  given 
by  one  man  to  another. 

THE  DEATH  OF  MAJOR  EDWARDS. 

[Colonel  John  C.  Moore  in  Pueblo,  Colo.  Despatch.] 
Major  Edwards  was  at  the  time  of  his  death  about  fifty  years  of 
age— in  the  prime  of  his  manhood  and  the  flower  of  his  intellect. 


202  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

He  was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  though  since  early  youth  he  had  lived 
in  and  been  identified  with  Missouri.  He  acquired  his  education 
chiefly  in  a  printing  office  at  Lexington,  but  before  he  reached  his- 
majority,  the  war  corning  on,  he  espoused  the  Southern  side  and 
enlisted  as  a  private  in  a  company  raised  and  equipped  by  Caplaiu 
Jo.  Shelby.  The  military  tie  thus  formed  lasted  through  the  war, 
and  as  Shelby  became  successively  colonel  of  a  regiment,  general  of 
brigade  and  general  of  division,  Edwards  advanced  in  grade  with 
him  as  adjutant,  assistant  adjutant-general,  and  chief  of  staff,  and 
finally  after  the  close  of  the  war  the  historian  of  the  achievements 
of  his  dashing  commander  and  his  gallant  comrades  in  arms. 

Indeed,  he  and  General  Shelby  went  to  Mexico  together  in  1865, 
and  while  in  that  country  his  book  "Shelby  and  His  Men"  was 
principally  written.  Being  written  at  such  a  time  and  under  such 
circumstances,  it  was,  of  course,  full  of  the  fire  and  passions  and 
animosities  of  the  war,  and  though  not  history  in  its  higher  and 
more  philosophical  sense,  it  isa  splendid  pageant  of  four  years  serv- 
ice in  one  of  the  greatest  wars  of  the  world,  and  contains  an  abun- 
dance of  the  material  of  which  history  is  made.  After  his  return 
from  Mexico  he  wrote  "The  Unwritten  Leaves  of  History,"  which 
gave  a  graphic  account  of  the  deeds  and  misdeeds  of  the  Confed- 
erate contingent  in  that  country,  and  of  a  most  interesting  episode 
in  Mexican  history — the  attempt  and  failure  to  establish  the  imperial 
dynasty  of  Maximilian  in  that  country. 

But  it  was  as  a  journalist  that  his  greatest  and  most  effective 
powers  were  exerted.  The  hurry,  the  rush,  and  the  necessities  of 
life  did  not  afford  him  leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  literature  in  its 
more  permanent  forms,  though  not  infrequently  he  turned  aside 
from  the  weary  path  of  daily  labor  to  write  a  sketch  or  an  essay, 
which  showed  what  he  might  have  done  under  moi  e  favorable  cir- 
cumstances. In  a  remarkable  degree  he  possessed  the  temperament 
of  "phantasieatd  flame,"  which  from  the bcginmi  g  of  the  world 
has  been  the  birthright  of  the  poet,  the  orator,  the  enthusiast,  and 
those  who  impress  themselves  strongly  on  their  fellows  and  control 
them  by  a  power  as  irresistible  as  it  is  subtle  and  undeficable.  His 
mental  processes  were  original.  "With  fine  powerof  logic  and  analy- 
sis— with  wit,  humor,  and  sarcasm  at  his  command — his  strength  as 
a  writer  consisted  chiefly  in  hisunequaled  capacity  as  a  rhetorician. 
It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  he  had  his  equal  among  American  jour- 
nalists in  pathos,  eloquence,  epigrammatic  point,  vividness  of 
description,  andtropical  luxuriance  of  rhetorical  illustration,  when  at 
at  his  best.  When  in  earnest — as  he  usually  was,  for  his  nature  was 
essentially  loyal  to  whatever  he  undertook — his  articles  swept  on, 
like  an  impetuous  stream  bearing  everything  before  it,  the  reader 
forgetting  to  analyze,  to  criticise,  or  to  question. 

KNIGHTLY  IN  WHATEVER  HE  DID. 

[Frank  H.  Brooks,  in  Chicago  Times.] 

"  Major  John  N.  Edwards  was  unobtrusive,  personally.  He 
would  no  more  wound  the  feelings  of  his  fellowman  than  he  would 
desecrate  the  grave  of  his  best  friend.  But  in  times,  when  it  was 
necessary  for  him  to  stand  out  and  engage  in  a  conflict,  he  was  as 
brave  as  a  lion  and  picturesque  in  his  manner  of  warfare.  He  had 
sometimes  in  his  composition  that  reminded  one  of  old  Murat  and 
yet  he  was  perfectly  free  from  bluster  and  ostentation. 

********* 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  203 

"Major  Edwards  was  knightly  in  whatever  he  did,  and  gave  the 
West  a  romantic  coloring  which  attached  to  no  other  section.  As 
polished  as  any  courtier,  no  matter  whether  he  was  in  a  hand-to- 
hand  conflict  or  in  a  drawing-room;  as  merciful  as  a  Sister  of  Charity 
and  as  tender  us  a  mother. 

"No  matter  what  flag  fluttered  over  the  suffering,  if  he  was  in 
the  vicinity  he  turned  aside  and  acted  the  role  of  the  good  Samari- 
tan. If  he  could  do  this  without  his  left  hand  being  any  the  wiser 
for  it,  it  suited  him  so  much  the  better.  If  any  man  had  a  contempt 
for  dress-parade  it  was  John  N.  Edwards. . 

##**x-#*#* 

"  When  the  war  was  over  Jo  Shelby  and  some  of  his  followers, 
who  had  dreamed  of  an  empire  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  went 
galloping  over  the  border  and  presented  themselves  to  Maximilian, 
iii  the  City  of  Mexico.  Edwards  was  one  of  the  company.  It  was 
a  strange  soldiery,  as  picturesque  as  anything  in  the  story  of  Spain. 
Not  a  man  in  that  company  who  had  not  been  present  at  some  of  the 
receptions  of  the  most  notable  people  in  his  own  country.  Not  a 
man  who  was  not  a  nobleman  by  nature.  Not  one  who  had  not  had, 
before  the  war,  his  retinue  of  servants  and  all  that  money  could 
give.  Not  one  who  did  not  speak  the  court  language  as  fluently  as 
he  spoke  his  own,  Not  one  who  was  not  fitted  for  the  conventional- 
ities of  the  drawing-room  of  any  crowned  head.  Edwards,  in  par- 
ticular, as  shy  as  a  fawn  even  then,  became  a  favorite  with  Maxi- 
milian, and  was  a  guest  at  the  capital  at  the  invitation  of  Carlotta, 
who  never  tired  of  hearing  his  stories  of  the  country  from  which  he 
came. 

"This  unique  soldiery,  however,  soon  returned  to  their  own 
country  and  became  loyal  and  useful  citizens.  Carlotta  went  home 
across  the  water,  and  the  pitiful  story  of  her  fate  has  been  told  in 
tears  all  around  the  globe.  Edwards  wrote  a  tribute  to  her  on  the 
occasion  of  her  malady,  which  was  printed  and  copied  the  land 
over  and  translated  into  various  languages  in  the  old  world.  It  was 
the  tenderest  and  purest  bit  of  English  that  ever  came  from  pen." 

DEATH  OF  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Robert  M.  Yost,  in  Sedalia  Gazette.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  dead. 

In  the  estimate  which  men  make  of  human  life  and  character, 
that  disposition  weighs  most  and  is  most  sublime  which  carries  in 
its  warp  and  woof  the  woven  threads  of  charity  and  chivalry,  of 
getftleness  and  courage,  of  devotion  to  principle  and  duty,  com 
mingled  with  that  love  of  fcllowman  which  is  womanly  in  its  ten 
derness  and  grim  in  its  determination. 

And  such  a  disposition  had  John  N.  Edwards.  There  was  not 
more  of  the  rich  purple  of  fruition  in  the  great  grapes  of  Eschol, 
carried  on  men's  shoulders  out  of  the  land  of  Canaan,  than  in  the 
blood  of  this  heroic,  childlike  gentleman.  No  matter  in  what 
society  nor  under  what  circumstances  he  wrote  or  spoke,  he  had 
that  kindliness  of  nature,  that  splendor  of  courtesy,  which  harmed 
no  man  without  a  just  and  sorrowful  cause.  And  amid  all  the 
brilliant  and  beautiful  things  which  found  their  way  from  his  teem- 
ing brain  into  human  hearts,  there  was  never  one  sting  of  malice,  ot 
envy,  or  of  strife.  Though  pre  eminently  a  man  of  peace^  though 
born  for  the  contemplation  of  sylvan  shades  and  nights  in  June; 
though  nurtured  by  the  velvet  hand  of  poesy,  and  surrounded 


204  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

through  life  by  convoys  of  cherubic  thoughts,  John  N.  Edwards 
rode  down  with  the  guns  on  many  a  hard-fought  battle-field  and 
smiled  at  the  skeleton  of  death  beside  him;  and  rattled  its  drju 
bones  with  no  more  thought  of  fear  than  has  the  prattling  child 
amid  a  field  of  clover-blooms. 

And  if  he  had  ever  contemplated  a  time  to  die,  he  would  have 
chosen  yesterday  as  that  time.  The  birds  of  spring  were  chirping 
at  his  window;  a  golden  flood  of  light  had  burst  upon  the  world, 
and  the  green  woods  flushed  with  sunshine,  and  shadowed  here 
and  there,  sang  the  praises  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God.  It  was  a 
peaceful  hour;  and  when  the  great  soul  sped  away  to  its  haven  of 
rest  the  time  and  the  hour  were  richer  with  the  weight  of  duty 
done. 

There  will  be  tears  in  every  household  of  Missouri  over  the  death 
of  John  N.  Etl wards.  Tears  for  the  man  who  loved  the  children 
and  the  soldiers.  Tears  for  him  who  rode  booted  and  spurred  into 
the  enemy's  guns,  and  then  turn  to  weep  over  the  dead  comrades 
who  laid  "down  their  lives  beside  him.  Tears  for  the  journalist, 
who  knew  neither  fear  nor  malice.  Tears  for  the  patroit,  who 
hated  nothing  more  fiercely  than  treachery  and  cowardice.  Tears 
for  the  neighbor  and  friend,  whose  hospitable  door  stood  always 
open,  and  whose  hand,  ever  extended  in  genorsity  to  the  poor,  the 
friendless  and  the  outcast,  never  closed  upon  a  dishonest  dollar. 
Tears  for  the  husband  and  father,  at  whose  grave  will  weep  not 
only  a  loving  wife  and  children,  but  the  wives  and  children  of  all 
men  in  this  broad  State  who  love  virtue  and  its  defenders.  Tears 
to-day  and  tears  to-morrow.  And  then  a  blessed  memory  of  one 
who  gilded  the  sunshine  while  he  lived,  and  then  went  down  to 
death  with  all  the  majestic  calmness  of  one  who  lies  down  to 
pleasant  dreams. 

After  life's  fitful  fever,  he  sleeps  well. 

IN  MEMORY  OF  MAJ.  EDWARDS. 

[George  W.  Terrell,  in  Boonville  Advertiser.] 
I  had  lost  a  friend  in  Romney  Leigh.—  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

One  does  not  need  to  have  a  flaming  fancy  to  picture  to  himself 
this  knight-errant  of  the  nineteenth  century  riding  down  from  the 
ancient  Arthurian  days  right  into  the  heart  of  this  grand  State  of 
ours,  and  into  the  very  midst  of  the  time  in  which  we  move  and 
rejoice.  He  might  have  ridden,  panoplied  and  plumed,  beside?  the 
peerless  Bayard  in  the  stormy  lists  of  the  long  ago,  for  his  actual 
career,  in  all  its  multiform  incidents  and  episodes,  rhymed,  one 
may  say.  as  the  lines  of  a  poem  rhyme,  with  the  wild  music  of  the 
olden  lances,  the  trumpets,  and  the  spurs  of  gold. 

Anyone  who  knew  John  N.  Edwards  intimately  could  not  sit 
down  and  read  Tennyson's  tragic  "Idylls  of  the  King"  without 
being  keenly  reminded  of  this  chivalrous  gentleman,  soldier,  and 
journalist,  whose  mortal  remains  lie  now  beneath  Missouri's  sacred 
sod.  The  brave,  sweet,  musical,  strong  voice,  sharp  withcommand, 
or  soft  in  speech  to  friend  and  woman;  the  poise  of  the  fine  head, 
with  a  front  of  princely  power;  the  large,  luminous,  liquid,  dark 
eyes,  that  were  made  to  flash  with  fury  or  dreamily  melt  in  love, 
were  only  a  part  of  the  superb  physical  equipment  given  to  our 
dear  friend  by  the  Creator  himself. 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  205 

Major  Edwards  was  fashioned  and  molded  for  the  very  day  and 
generation  in  which  he  lived.  When  the  great  civil  struggle  broke 
^lorth  upon  land  and  sea,  he  had  just  attained  to  the  estate  of  lusty 
'manhood.  Beardless,  but  bold  as  a  lion,  he  found  a  neighbor  near 
at  hand  who,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  was  to  personify  his  supreme 
idealization  of  the  true  soldier.  This  was  none  other  than  the  famous 
General  Jo  Shelby.  With  him  the  young  cavalryman  went  gaily  to 
the  war  as  a  Knight  of  the  Round  Table  was  wont  to  enter  the  tragic 
tournaments  in  times  of  the  vanished  kings  and  "queens.  How  well 
he  rode,  and  how  far ;  and  how  finely  he  fought  in  all  those  four 
long  years,  need  not  be  recounted  in  these  imperfect  lines.  As  a  fit- 
ting and  dramatic  close  to  his  brilliant  career  in  the  States,  what  could 
be  more  fascinating  than  the  episode  of  Shelby's  expedition  to  Mexico 
—one  of  the  most  strangely  romantic  in  the  annals  of  American 
history. 

Edwards'  career  was  no  less  notable  in  the  paths  of  peace  than 
on  the  ensanguined  plains  of  battle.  As  his  glittering  blade  gleamed 
brighter  than  all  others  in  the  front  of  the  fight,  so  his  pen  cast  forth 
gems  of  rhetoric  richer  in  their  quality  than  anything  in  Western 
authorship.  In  picturing  roses  and  wine  and  the  graces  of  pretty 
women  his  fancy  was  riotous  in  its  profusion  of  poesy.  In  describ- 
ing the  deeds  of  valor  done  by  his  beloved  Confederate  comrades, 
his  phrases  and  epigrams  had  the  brilliancy  of  th6  rapier  and  the 
beauty  and  suppleness  of  the  keen-flashing  Damascus  blade.  His 
eulogies  of  dead  friends  and  companions  were  as  tender  and  exquis- 
ile  us  anything  of  the  kindin  the  English  language. 

Ou  Monday,  near  the  quaint  little  village  of  Dover,  in  Lafayette 
county,  a  multitude  of  tearful  men  and  women  assembled  to  see  his 
form  "lowered  gently  to  its  last  resting  place.  All  the  trees  were 
melodious  with  the  songs  of  birds;  all  the  rich  grasses  and  fields 
were  abloom  with  flowers.  The  sweet  young  maiden,  May,  her  vio- 
let cheeks  wet  with  the  mist  of  many  memories,  bent  from  the  blue 
sky  above  the  grave ;  and  in  this  wise,  the-  simple  soldier,  the 
incomparable  journalist,  and  the  ideal  chevalier  of  these  days  of 
ours,  was  hidden  away  forever  from  the  brimming  eyes  of  his  earthly 
friends. 

FROM   THE  MISSOURI  PRESS  ASSOCIATION. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Missouri  Press  Association,  held  at  Nevada 
June  5,  1889,  before  the  adoption  of  the  report  on  memorials,  Presi- 
dent Williams  paid  the  following  beautiful  acd  touching  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  Colonel  Turner  and  Major  Edwards:  "Especially 
Lasjthis  Association,  \\ith  the  press  of  Missouri,  suffered  loss  in  the 
death  of  Joseph  H.  Turner  and  John  N.  Edwards,  more  prominent 
for  various  reasons  than  the  others  named.  They  were  both  news- 
paper men  to  the  manor  born;  they  both  knew  something  of  Ibe 
wastes  along  which  the  ((liter's  pathway  often  goes,  where  streams 
are  not,  nor  springs  nor  water  of  refreshment  anywhere.  They 
both  had  tasted  of  the  bitter  and  the  sweet.  Modestly  they  accepted 
fMte,  drank  deep  cf  life,  knew  books  and  hearts  of  men,  cities  and 
camps,  and  man's  immortal  woe.  They  both  had  battled  with  the 
sword  and  pen.  Soldiers  both,  they  were  better  citizens  therefor. 
They  loved  bravery  and  gentleness  ard  were  brave  and  gentle  alto- 
erether.  Honor  and  duty  and  love  were  theirs  and  littleness  was  as 
foreign  to^  their  natures  ns  impurity  to  the  sea. 

"  Their  spheres  of  life  were  different  and  their  characters  dis- 
similar. The  one  brilliant,  meteoric,  chivalric,  passionate  in  word 


206  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

and  deed,  an  Arthurian  knight  who  had  ridden  down  from  the 
days  of  the  Round  Table  until  now;  the  other  conservative,  practical, 
genial,  with  big  body  and  large  heart,  a  faithful  officer,  a  zealous 
worker,  more  in  smaller  circle  perhaps,  but  equally  courageous, 
tender  and  true.  The  one  a  soldier  who  had  worn  the  blue  with 
credit  and  had  followed  where  the  old  commander  led,  the  other 
who  had  donned,  the  gray  a  blue  eyed  and  beardless  boy,  and 
doffed  it  only  when  the  cause  for  which  he  fought  was  lost — the 
stars  and  bars  gone  down  and  with  them  all  save  honor.  What 
better  requiem  now  for  these  friends  of  ours  to  whom  death's  drum- 
beathascalled  'Lightsout'  thauthatsaidorsungoverSirLauncelot's 
dead  body,  '  for  than  these  no  goodlier  gentlemen  ever  set,  lance  in 
rest,  none  braver  drew  swords  in  the  press  of  knights.'  This  much 
would  I  fain  say  in  loving  remembrance  of  these  men — buried  the 
one  at  Carrollton,  yondermid  the  gold  and  scarlet  of  autumn  leaves, 
touched  and  tinged  with  frost;  the  other  entombed  on  Lafayette's 
prairies,  broad  and  sunlit  as  his  soul,  within  sight  of  the  old  home- 
stead where  he  had  wooed,  won,  and  wedded  the  faithful 
woman  who  was  at  his  side  through  good  and  ill. 

"Turner  and  Edwards — of  different  creeds,of  different  faiths, of 
opposing  politics — they  were  both  large-hearted,  clean-handed, cour- 
ageous gentlemen  and  journalists.  Helpful  always  to  those  who 
needed  help,  loved  most  by  those  who  knew  them  best,  they  richly 
deserve  this  tribute  at  our  hands.  Upon  the  roster,  where  the  names 
of  Regan  and  Carter  and  McFarland  and  Jim  Anderson  were  placed, 
let  theirs  also  be  inscribed,  and  after  them  let  it  be  written,  as  the 
response  for  two  centuries  the  name  of  the  famous  old  French 
grenadier  was,  '  dead  on  the  field  of  honor,'  and  as  we  close  their 
pspulchers,  where  the  flowers  bloom  and  grass  is  grown  to-day,  we 
seem  to  catch  in  the  clangor  of  the  vault  door  swinging  shut  the 
echo  of  the  opening  of  the  pearly  gates  of  Paradise,  and  straining 
our  eyes  through  the  darkness  here,  where  the  widow  and  children 
and  friends  group  blindly,  wanderingly,  do  we  not  see  across  the 
river,  yonder,  where  the  boatman  rows  us  one  by  one,  the  gleaming 
of  lights  of  the  harbor,  and  heavenly  harbor  at  last." 

DEATH  OF  MAJOR  EDWARDS. 

[Jefferson  City  Tribune."] 

Missouri  has  lost  her  greatest  newspaper  man  and  her  constella- 
tion of  journalists  is  dimmed  by  the  departure  of  its  most  brilliant 
member.  Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  dead,  and  again  is  exempli- 
fied the  adage  that  the  King  of  Terrors  loves  a  shining  mark. 

"John  N.  Edwards,  the  brilliant  writer  and  prince  of  journal- 
ists, is  dead."  That  was  the  sorrowful  news  the  telegraph  carried 
out  to  the  journalists  of  the  South  and  West  yesterday.  No  sadder 
intelligence  than  this  has  flashed  over  the  wires  out  of  this  city. 
Truly,  a  great  man  in  journalism  "has  fallen  this  day."  As  the 
sun  in  the  firmament  is  to  the  solar  system,  so  was  Major  John  N. 
Edwards  to  the  journalisticfirmament.  Butthe  sun  has  set  while  itwas 
yet  noon.  Few  attain  such  eminence  in  their  profession  even  when 
hoary  hairs  adorn  their  brow  as  he  attained  while  yet  in  the  prime 
of  life  and  full  vigor  of  manhood.  Of  him  it  can  be  said:  "His 
eye  was  not  dim  nor  his  natural  force  abated/'  But  he  is  gone — out 
into  the  great  unknown  future  his  spirit  winged  its  way.  The  sum- 
mons came  and  he  obeyed  the  mandate.  He  died  as  he  had  lived— a 
friend  to  the  unfortunate  and  down  trodden.  No  kind  mother  ever 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  £07 

spreai  the  covering  more  tenderly  over  her  sleeping  infant  than 
John  N.  Edvsards  spread  the  mantle  of  charity  over  the  erring  and 
the  fallen. 

Brave  as  a  lion,  gentle  as  a  lamb,  none  ever  appealed  to  him  for 
charity  in  vain;  the  defenseless  always  found  in  him  a  prompt  and 
fearless  advocate;  a  perfect  stranger  to  personal  fear,  he  was  equally 
unmoved  by  flattery  or  adulation.  Always  guided  by  the  most  noble 
and  generous  impulses,  he  was  wholly  incapable  of  committing  a 
pusillanimous  act.  His  severest  journalistic  castigations  wereal  way  s 
characterized  by  a  purity  of  thought  and  chastity  of  language  sel- 
dom exhibited  by  caustic  writers.  Would  that  all  writers  could  be 
induced  to  emulate  his  noble  virtues  in  this  respect.  "Peace  to  his 
ashes." 

JOHN    NEWMAN  EDWAKDS. 

[Lexington  Intelligencer.'] 

John  Edwards  is  dead.  The  brave,  the  true,  the  gentle,  the 
chivalric  John  Edwards  has  gone  to  sleep  in  death.  His  lance 
is  at  rest;  his  pen  will  idly  rust,  and  from  every  combat  in  which 
men  engage,  we  who  have  so  long  looked  for  him  in  every  fray  will 
look  for  him  in  vain.  There  are  few  men  like  him.  He  had  his 
faults,  perhaps,  but  who  has  not,  and  of  how  many  of  us  can  it  be 
said  that  these  were  as  light  as  autumn  leaves  in  comparison  with 
the  merits  of  his  virtues?  His  pen  was  ever  ready  to  defend  the 
right;  it  never  faltered  in  works  of  beneficence  and  mercy.  The 
weak  possessed  a  claim  upon  him  which  he  ne'er  resisted,  and  the 
poor  had  in  him  a  champion  and  a  friend.  In  this  world  of  selfish- 
ness and  greed  he  knew  no  such  thing  as  self,  and  was  constantly  an 
immolation  upon  the  altar  of  his  love  for  hisfellowmen. 

He  was  a  poet,  a  soldier,  and  a  politician — a  poet  from  the  days 
when  a  boy  in  a  printing  office  in  old  Virginia  he  used  surrepti- 
tiously to  hang  his  effusions  on  the  hook;  a  soldier  from  the  day 
when  duty  first  called  him  to  the  field,  and  a  politician  in  that  larger 
sense  which  seeks  by  the  means  of  government  to  better  and  to 
ameliorate  the  condition  of  mankind.  He  was  a  student  and  a  phi- 
losopher. Books  were  his  idols,  and  he  worshiped  at  no  polluted 
shrine.  The  best  that  philosophy,  history,  and  poetry  afforded  was 
the  contemplation  of  his  leisure,  and  the  instrument  with  which  he 
delved  for  men. 

In  the  society  of  the  learned  and  the  high,  men  listened  to  his 
words,  surprised  at  their  erudition  and  their  depth;  in  company 
with  the  lowly  he  had  language  equal  to  their  comprehension 
and  their  needs.  Religion  to  him  was  nothing  for  passing  show,  to 
be  lightly  taken  up  or  as  lightly  laid  aside.  No  man  ever  more 
realizthed  the  awfulness  and  mightiness  of  God;  no  man  ever  more 
reverently  whispered  His  name.  No  man  more  thoroughly  believed 
in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  or  more  completely  appreciated  the 
immensity  of  consequent  responsibilities.  As  little  as  he  talked  of 
it,  no  man  was  more  thoroughly  a  religious  man  than  he. 

In  his  composition  there  was  no  such  thing  as  fear.  Death  had 
no  terrors  for  him.  Often  near  it  he  neither  sought,  nor  shrunk 
from  it.  At  the  last,  had  he  known  tliat  it  had  overtaken  him,  he 
would, 

"  Sustained  and  soothed 
3y  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  his  grave 
Like  one  that  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 


208  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

It  was  not  only  those  in  his  own  household  that  loved 
Edwards.  As  keen  as  the  scimeter  of  he  Saracen  in  combat,  as 
merciless  in  debate  as  he  was  gentle  in  personal  contact,  his  politi- 
cal opponents  honored,  respected,  and  often  loved  him.  This  grew 
largely  outof  his  admiration  for  bravery  and  virtue  wherever  found. 
He  eulogized  Conkling,  and  he  apotheosized  Nellie  Grant.  While 
he  fought  like  a  tiger  on  the  field,  whether  of  arms  or  politics,  he 
could  no  more  abuse  power  than  he  could  condone  a  lie  or  for- 
give a  meanness. 

DEATH  OF  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Columbia  Herald.] 

Thousands  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  will 
receive  the  news  of  Major  Edwards'  death  with  the  profoundest  sen- 
sations of  sorrow.  He  possessed  a  remarkable  personal  magnetism. 
Singularly  unobtrusive  and  modest,  and  apparently  indifferent, 
touching  the  attraction  of  others,  he  yet  drew  to  him  all  men  with 
whom  he  came  in  close  contact — many  of  them  by  ties  of  strong 
and  genuine  affection.  While  he  was  a  hard  fighter,  whether  in 
politics  or  war,  his  bosom  bore  no  malice,  and  his  greatest  happiness 
lay  in  unselfish  service  of  those  he  loved. 

As  a  writer  he  was  without  a  peer.  To  the  imagination  and 
diction  of  the  poet  he  added  the  vigorous  and  pungent  force  of  a 
practical  journalist.  No  man  connected  with  the  Missouri  press  has 
written  so  many  beautiful  things — has  left  behind  so  many  produc- 
tions glittering  with  rhetorical  gems,  and  at  the  same  time  no  pen 
has  been  wielded  with  more  rapier-like  vigor  and  effect  in  the  realm 
of  practical  politics.  He  has  been  a  positive  force  in  Missouri  jour- 
nalism for  twenty  years,  and  no  one  connected  with  newspapers  has, 
during  that  period,  impressed  his  personality  so  strongly  upon  pub- 
lic affairs.  Personally  he  was  the  embodiment  of  chivalry,  and,  as 
both  soldier  and  journalist,  he  evinced  qualities  which  characterized 
rather  the  days  of  the  crusader  or  cavalier  than  the  prosaic  periods 
of  the  nineteenth  century. 

A  gifted  writer,  a  generous  friend,  an  accomplished  citizen,  a 
thorough  gentleman,  he  passed  away.  We  shall  not  look  upon  his 
like  again. 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

1  Hunnewe.ll  (Kan.)  Bee.] 

Ah,  Sir  Launcelot !  thou  wert  head  of  all  Christian  knights ;  now  there  thou 
liest;  thou  wert  never  matched  of  none  earthly  knight's  hands.  And  thou 
wert  the  curliest  knight  that  ever  bore  shield.  And  thou  wert  the  kindest 
man  that  ever  strook  with  sword.  And  thou  wprt  the  meekest  man  that 
ever  eate  in  hall  among  ladies.  And  thou  wert  the  sternest  knight  to  thy 
Mortal  foe  that  ever  put  speare  in  rest. — Morte  d*  Arthur. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  soberly  at  this  time  of  the  gallant  soldier, 
the  generous  man,  the  brilliant  journalist,  the  strong,  earnest,  and 
true  Democrat  for  whose  sudden  death  all  Missouri  mourns.  Those 
who  knew  him  personally  testify  to  his  warm  heart,  his  unselfish- 
ness, and  his  personal  bravery.  To  those  who,  like  the  writer  of 
this,  only  knew  him  through  the  medium  of  his  writings,  these  testi- 
monials come  with  a  peculiarly  grateful  sound.  We  know  of  no 
man  in  America  whose  literary  style  was  quite  so  charming  and 
delightful  as  that  of  Major  Edwards.  It  is  difficult  to  describe  it 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES,  209 

and  impossible  to  analyze  it.  All  history  seemed  to  be  at  his  com- 
mand, and  lie  possessed  a  wonderful  knack  of  seizing  its  striking 
and  dramatic  features  aud  placing  them  before  the  minds  of  his 
readers.  He  had  not  only  read  history  but  he  had  lived  and  acted 
it.  He  had  no  mean  part  in  the  events  of  the  late  war  on.  this  side 
of  the  Mississippi. 

He  has  left  a  record  of  what  he  saw  in  the  form  of  an  histor- 
ical work  that  is  the  very  masterpiece  of  our  "  Civil-War  "literature. 
It  is  no  dry  detail  of  marches  and  sieges,  no  monotonous  recital  of 
slaughter.  There  is  not  a  dull  page  in  the  book  and  scarcely  a 
commonplace  sentence.  It  is  not  a  mere  recital  but  a  living 
pageant  of  stirring  events.  One  hears  through  every  page  the 
trampling  of  armed  squadrons,  and  catches  the  sound  of  the 
trumpet;  there  is  the  light  of  the  bivouac  fires  on  the  bearded 
faces;  there  is  the  thrilling  episode,  the  gallant  charge,  the  heroic 
death.  And  withal  a  faithful  adherence  to  truth.  His  editorial 
writings  were  remarkable  for  their  strength  and  brilliancy.  His 
sentence^  were  saber-strokes.  He  was  a  hard-hitter,  yet  there  was 
nothing  coarse,  nothing  that  was  not  polished  and  elegant.  His 
party  had  no  safer  guide.  He  was  essentially  sound  in  his  political 
utterances.  He  never  once  lost  sight  of  the  principles  of  Democ- 
racy, and  it  has  been  well  said  of  him  that  he  never  wrote  one 
sentence  against  his  own  convictions,  no  matter  what  the  policy  of 
the  newspaper  for  which  he  wrote  might  be.  The  world  of  journal- 
ism will  not  again  soon  know  his  equal. 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Saline  County  Progress.] 

We  do  not  know  of  any  other  Missouri  journalist  who  has  ever 
lived,  to  whose  memory  so  many  beautiful  and  touching  tributes 
have  been  written  by  his  brethren  of  the  press.  Indeed  this  is  no 
matter  of  wonder.  Major  Edwards,  as  a  newspaper  writer,  was 
unique,  inimitable,  and  one  of  the  greatest  lights  that  has  ever 
figured  in  Missouri  journalism.  He  was  the  prince  of  Missouri  news- 
paper men.  Now  that  he  is  dead,  all  unite,  regardless  of  party,  in 
one  general  chorus  in  praise  of  him  who  has  done  so  much  to  honor 
and  adorn  the  profession.  They  mourn  the  loss  of  him  who,  more 
than  any  other,  was  the  architect  of  the  glory  of  the  press  of  our 
State— one  who  spent  the  best  years  of  his  life,  the  greatest  vigor  of 
his  mind,  and  the  warmest  sympathies  of  his  large  heart  in  securing 
the  advancement  and  dignity  and  power  of  the  press  of  our  State. 
Missouri  journalism  mourns,  in  sorrow  that  cannot  be  comforted, for 
him  who  was  her  pride  and  her  glory,  and  who  was  chief  among  her 
gallaxy  of  bright  men. 

"AT  LAST." 

[Frostburg  (Md.)  Mining  Journal.'] 

The  Kansas  City  (Mo.)  Times  of  last  Sunday  gives  a  lengthy 
account  of  the  death  on  Saturday  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  editor 
of  that  paper,  and  one  of  the  most  brilliant  writers  in  the  United 
States.  We  knew  him  as  a  youth  of  extraordinary  promise.  At 
fourteen  years  of  age  he  became  the  author  of  a  story  which  won 
for  him  a  wide  celebrity.  Shortly  after,  he  went  to  Missouri,  where 
he  led  a  checkered  but  always  an  honorable  and  brilliant  career. 
A  great  publicist,  he  made  friends  in  the  highest  walks  of  life. 


210  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Instead  of  seeking,  he  was  always  the  sought;  instead  of  pushing 
himself  forward,  he  was  unselfishly  aggressive  in  promoting  popu- 
lar preferment  for  his  friends.  He  stood  at  the  helm  of  great 
papers,  to  whom  his  flashing  genius  won  wide  circulation,  and  there 
is  hardly  a  library  in  Missouri  that  does  not  contain  his  books. 
Proudly  remembered  by  the  friends  of  his  youth,  there  are  thousands 
in  the  State  of  his  adoption  who  will  not  look  upon  his  like  again. 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Liberty  Advance.'] 

As  was  said  of  the  Douglass  of  old,  "Thou  art  tender  and 
true,"  so  might  as  justly  be  said  of  this  Palladin  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  harmonious  unison  with  the  pulse-throbs  that  beat  the 
blood  about  the  chivalric  hearts  of  Roland  and  Bayard,  moved  his 
blood  around  a  heart  as  bold  as  Creur  de  Leon's,  as  gentle  as 
Romeo's.  Naught  that  animated  and  inspired  those  bold  deeds  of 
chivalry  in  the  past,  around  which  our  memory  in  admiration  so 
loves  to  cling,  was  foreign  to  or  absent  from  the  heart  of  this 
brilliant  man,  this  sympathetic  friend,  this  noble  foe. 

His  was  a  character  at  once  strong  and  attractive,  and  in  the 
long  line  of  mourning  friends  who  followed  in  the  funeral  train  to 
pay  the  last  sad  rites  of  respect  to  the  dead,  scarred  and  bearded 
cheeks,  with  channels  worn  deep  and  lasting  by  war's  rigors,  shed 
tears  of  sympathy,  which  freely  commingled  on  the  hero's  grave 
with  those  of  child  and  maiden. 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Richmond  Conservator.] 

There  was  scarcely  another  man  in  Missouri  whose  death 
would  have  caused  such  universal  regret  and  sadness  as  that  of 
Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times.  When  the 
intelligence  was  flashed  over  the  wires  last  Saturday  that  his  spirit 
had  gone  out  from  its  earthly  tabernacle  and  passed  into  the  mystic 
future,where  the  human  eye  can  not  penetrate  or  thehuman  thought 
fathom,  many  a  stout  heart  bled  with  sorrow  from  its  very  depths, 
and  many  an  eye  was  reddened  with  tears  of  sadness.  Almost 
every  man  in  Missouri  of  any  prominence  knew  John  N.  Edwaids, 
either  personally  or  by  reputation,  and  those  who  were  best 
acquainted  with  him  were  his  warmest  friends  and  most  ardent 
admirers.  He  was  no  ordinary  man,  and  those  with  whom  he  CM  me 
in  contact,  as  well  as  those  who  read  from  his  pen,  readily  observed 
his  superior  talent  as  a  writer  and  noble  impulses  as  a  man.  His 
pen  was  a  power  in  the  journalistic  field  of  Missouri  and  his  influ- 
ence even  extended  beyond  her  lines. 

His  brilliant  and  eloquent  editorials  were  read  with  pleasure 
by  thousands  of  his  admirers,  and  were  easily  recognized  as  com- 
ing from  his  master  mind,  the  reservoir  of  learning,  of  eloquence, 
and  of  poetry.  As  he  thought  he  wrote,  and  no  man  ever  lived 
who  could  imitate  or  counterfeit  his  peculiar  and  original  style. 
Nature  endowed  him  with  the  superior  faculty  of  drawing  men  to 
him,  and  to  become  acquainted  with  him  was  to  be  his  friend  and 
admirer.  In  opposition  he  was  kind,  generous,  and  sympathetic, 
and  never  permitted  an  opportunity  of  doing  a  charitable  act  to 
pass  unnoticed.  His  body  was  laid  to  rest  last  Monday  in 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  211 

cemetery  at  Dover,  where  it  will  raolder  and  return  to  dust,  but 
his  excellent  qualities  will  remain  green  in  the  minds  of  his  friends 
and  acquaintances  for  years  to  come,  and  they  will  recall  with 
pleasure  incidents  of  his  brilliant  career  as  a  soldier,  a  journalist 
and  an  honored  citizen  of  Missouri. 


A  CHIVALRIC  NOBLE  SPIRIT. 

Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  no  more  on  this  earth. 

What  a  grand,  chivalric,  and  noble  spirit  has  gone  forever  from 
among  us! 

He,  the  darling  idol  of  the  ten  thousand,  Missouri's  bravest, 
noblest,  and  best  is  carried  away  from  this  world's  quickening 
theater  into  the  realms  of  eternal  bliss,  there  to  study  the  figures 
and  poetry  of  life  eternal,  as  did  wont  his  soul  to  soar  and  magnet- 
ize in  the  days  of  his  earthly  career. 

The  pen — his  mighty  pen  is  fallen ! 

No  more  in  the  great  strife  of  battle — we  have  the  infantry  of 
his  logic,  the  bayonet-thrust  of  his  sarcasm,  the  saber-stroke  of  his 
irony;  the  cavalry  charge  of  his  courage,  the  powerful  and  terrific 
thunderstorm  of  his  denunciations,  the  artillery  of  his  manhood, 
and  above  all  the  tenderness  and  sunshine  of  his  immortal  soul. 

In  the  quiet  walks  of  life,  a  devoted  and  beloved  husband;  a 
kind,  loving,  and  adored  father;  a  firm,  loyal,  and  unselfish  friend;  a 
remarkable  and  valuable  citizen ;  a  brave,  generous,  noble,  sincere, 
manly  man,  who  believed  in  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  is  departed  from  us. 

All  over  Missouri  the  friends,  comrades,  and  admirers  of  Major 
John  N.  Edwards  by  the  tens  of  thousands  deeply  mourn  his 
untimely  death. 

This  unrivaled  journalist,  this  gifted,  brilliant,  and  good  man 
died  too  soon ! 

As  one  who  had  the  friendship  of  Major  John  N.  Ed  wards  from 
childhood,  we  loved  him  when  he  was  with  us.  We  mourn  him 
dead.  He  had  no  enemies. 

"Bright  be  the  place  of  thy  soul. 

No  lovelier  spirit  than  thine 
E'er  burst  from  its  mortal  control, 
In  the  orbs  of  the  blessed  to  shine." 


JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Cold  water  (Kas.)  Star.] 

And  now  sad  tidings  comes  to  us  that  Major  John  N.  Edwards, 
of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  is  dead.  This  news  strikes  sadly  upon 
our  hearts.  For  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  we  had  known  him, 
and  known  him  to  love  him.  Born  on  the  historic  soil  of  old 
Virginia,  where  he  early  acquired  those  noble  and  chivalric  traits  of 
character  which  were  clearly  shown  in  all  his  after  life,  John 
Edwards  was  a  trained  gentlemen,  a  scholar,  and  a  friend,  almost 
without  a  peer.  To  him,  friendship  was  so  noble  a  tie  that  no 
misfortune  nor  good  fortune  could  ever  break  nor  ever  buy.  John 
Edwards  was  one  among  the  few  men  on  earth  whom  solid  gold 
could  not  buy.  To  him,  friendship  was  almost  a  God.  For  him  to 
be  your  friend,  meant  for  him,  if  necessary,  to  suffer  and  to  die  in 
your  behalf.  To  those  who  knew  John  Edwards,  there  came  never 


212  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

a  faint    suspicion  that  confidence  once  given  could  ever  there  be 
misplaced. 

As  a  journalist,  he  ranked  very  high.  As  a  literary  writer,  Jie 
could  have  rivaled  Victor  Hugo,  whom  he  greatly  admired.  Many 
of  his  writings,  notably  "  Poor  Carlotta,"  stand  in  the  front  rank 
as  gems  of  their  kind. 

John  Edwards  is  dead  !  A  noble  soul  has  gone  across  the 
mystic  river  !  He  had  his  faults  ;  but  who  more  virtuous  than  he  ! 
He  never  knew  what  it  was  to  commit  a  little  act ;  his  errors  were 
against  himself.  He  has  gone  to  his  last  resting-place — to  the  great 
and  mysterious  unknown.  No  more  sha41  we  hear  his  pleasant, 
welcome  voice  ;  no  more  gather  pearls  scattered  from  his  fertile  pen. 
Alas,  his  body  molds.  Too  sad!  too  sad  !  And  yet,  "  To  this 
complexion  must  we  all  come  at  last." 

A  GREAT  WRITER  GONE. 

[Boonville  Topic.} 

The  most  striking  figure  in  Missouri  journalism  was  made  a 
memory  when  Major  Edwards  died.  For  years  his  writing  had 
been  familiar,  stamped  as  it  was  with  the  impress  of  his  own  pecul- 
iar personality.  Picturesque,  abounding  in  original  thoughts  and 
poetical  expressions,  classical  sometimes  almost  to  obscurity,  assert- 
ive always,  logical  never,  his  style  was  as  well  known  throughout 
the  West  as  though  across  every  line  and  article  had  been  written 
his  initials  or  his  name.  Intense  in  friendships,  he  was  equally 
uncompromising  in  his  hatreds.  He  wasapoet  born.  Through  all 
his  work  the  vivid  imagery,  the  thought,  the  diction,  the  essence  of 
poetry  was  to  be  seen.  To  all  subjects  that  he  touched  he  gave  a 
golden  tinge.  He  weaved  for  his  favorites  crowns  of  roses;  thorns 
and  nettles  for  those  whom  he  did  not  like.  He  was  a  knight— a 
relic  of  the  days  of  chivalry.  In  his  life  and  writings  he  betrayed 
the  influence  of  that  by-gone  age.  His  sword  was  never  drawn  save 
in  what  he  thought  to  be  a  righteous  cause.  Upon  his  armor 
glistened  always  purity  and  truth.  Obstaclesdid  not  deter  him  nor 
difficulties  prevent  him  waging  war.  Personally,  John  Edwards 
was  brave  and  lion-hearted.  There  was  only  one  foe  he  could  not 
face,  and  because  he  yielded  to  its  temptations  too  often  and  too 
long,  Death  came,  the  pen  was  laid  aside,  and  peacefully  as  one 
who  sleeps  when  day  is  done,  this  man,  still  in  the  prime  of  life, 
answered  to  a  summons  from  beyond.  Bury  his  inconsistencies  with 
him.  Remember  not  the  frailties  of  the  dead.  But  his  good  of  deed 
and  word  and  splendid  heart  is  inscribed  on  the  memory  of  many 
that  he  helped  and  loved  and  labored  for.  May  it  fade  not  away 
from  us  forever. 

CHIVALROUS  AS  A  KNIGHT. 

[Ozark  (Mo.,)  Republican.] 

The  most  brilliant  writer  Missouri  ever  nurtured  to  greatness 
has  passed  away.  Major  John  N.  Edwards  died  at  Jefferson  City 
on  the  4th  of  May.  The  master  of  a  style  of  vivid  splendor  he,  like 
Goldsmith,  "touched  nothing  which  he  did  not  adorn."  An 
enthusiastic  Democrat,  and  a  Confederate  who  followed  Shelby  to 
Mexico,  he  nevertheless  had  hosts  of  Republican  friends.  Through 
all  the  wild,  stern  days  of  battle,  John  N.  Edwards  had  fought,  and 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  213 

during  many  a  woful  night  he  had  ridden  with  the  terrible  men  of 
the  border,  but  he  was  always  the  soul  of  honor  and  as  chivalrous 
a^a  knight  of  old.  His  strangely  captivating  style  glittered  with 
metaphors  that  were  drawn  from  his  reminiscences  of  the  stormy 
but  entrancing  days  when  the  great  conflict  filled  men's  hearts  with 
emotion  and  elevated  their  minds  with  thoughts  and  experiences  of 
epic  grandeur.  Of  rhetoric.  Major  Edwards  was  a  very  lord, painting 
in  the  chambers  of  his  imagery  pictures  of  vermilion  and  gold. 
In  his  perfect  diction  there  was  always  present  that  stimulus — that 
power  of  opening  vistas  vast  as  we  see  in  dreams — which  it  is  the 
privilege  of  genius  only  to  possess.  -Many  a  Missourian  must  feel 
that  when  John  N.  Edwards  died  it  was  as  if  the  bright  star,  A.lde- 
baran,  had  faded  forever  from  the  sight  of  men. 

JOHN  N.  EDWAKDS. 

[CJlrick  Chronicle.'] 

By  the  death  of  John  N.  Edwards,  which  occurred  suddenly  at 
Jefferson  City  last  Saturday,  one  of  the  brightest  stars  is  removed 
from  the  galaxy  of  Western  journalism.  Major  Edwards  was  the 
Napoleon  of  journalism.  No  pen  in  the  West — we  believe  in  the 
United  States — was  gifted  so  brilliantly  as  was  his.  His  literary 
productions  in  the  profession  of  hischoice  wereof  the  most  magnifi- 
cent type.  Familiar  with  all  the  best  authors  of  English  literature, 
he  was  never  at  a  loss  for  a  simile  from  the  productions  of  such 
writers  as  Shakspeare,  Scott,  and  Moore.  The  master  of  the  most 
vindictive  sarcasm  when  his  antagonism  was  aroused,  and  of  the 
most  disdainful  irony  when  his  contempt  was  excited,  none  were 
quicker  to  change  to  sympathetic  strains  when  his  foe  was  van- 
quished. Passing  his  earlier  years  among  clangers  known  only  to 
those  who  have  witnessed  the  scenes  of  border  warfare,  he  strongly 
imbibed  the  dash  and  impetuosity  which  he  afterwards  displayed  in 
the  journalistic  arena.  Quick  and  impulsive,  possessing  the  spirit 
of  independence,  a  stranger  to  policy,  he  was  not  always  in  harmony 
with  his  party.  Yet  he  was  a  partisan  in  its  strictest  sense,  so  far 
as  principles  were  concerned.  He  never  lost  sight  of  the  tenets 
established  by  those  whom  he  esteemed  as  the  founders  of  his  party. 

No  man  is  perfect,  so  let  his  weaknesses  be  forgotten  as  he  is 
laid  beneath  the  clods  of  the  valley,  while  we,  as  members  of  the 
same  profession,  cherish  his  memory  for  the  good  he  has  done 
and  may  our  conception  of  him  as  an  ideal  journalist  tend  to  the 
elevation  of  journalism  in  this  country.  Peace  to  his  ashes. 

HE  HELPED  THE  NEEDY. 

[Jefferson  City  Correspondence  Chicago  Times.] 

A  man  and  woman,  who  alighted  from  a  common  farm-wagon, 
attracted  considerable  attention  yesterday  as  they  entered  the 
McCarty  House  and  passed  up  to  the  room  where  lay  the  remains  of 
Major  John  N.  Edwards,  the  Kansas  City  editor,  who  had  died  a  few 
hours  before  of  paralysis.  The  woman  was  in  tears,  and  her  hus- 
band evidently  was  trying  hard  to  conceal  his  emotion.  Both  were 
well  along  in  years,  and  his  hair  was  streaked  with  gray. 

"  AnT I  related  to  Major  Edwards  ?"  he  said  to  an  attendant. 
"No  ;  but  I  would  have  done  as  much  for  him  as  I  would  for  a 
brother.  He  did  me  a  friendly  act  once  when  I  was  a  stranger  and  in 


214  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

sore  need  of  friends.  Nobody  but  Major  Ed.wards  would  have  done 
it.  I  was  in  the  army,  and  got  word  that  my  wife,  Mary,  was  very 
sick  and  likely  to  die  To  come  back  almost  certainly  meant  to  be 
taken  prisoner,  but  I  decided  to  risk  it.  Several  days  1  hung  arouna 
the  neighborhood,  and  became  nearly  famished,  and  then  1  made  a 
break  for  the  house.  I  was  captured  by  two  men  and  taken  before 
Major  Edwards.  To  him  I  told  my  story.  He  believed  me,  and 
accompanied  me  to  my  house.  Mary  was  at  death's  door,  but  a 
doctor  came,  and  things  that  were  necessary  were  provide^.  Finally 
she  got  better,  and  I  was  sent  back  to  my  company,  the  only  thing 
required  being  that  I  say  nothing  about  what  had  taken  place.  Do 
you  wonder  that  I  mourn  this  man's  death  ?" 

MAJOR  J.  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Bates  County  Democrat.'] 

No  death  has  occurred  in  the  State  of  Missouri  for  many  years 
that  has  given  so  much  genuine  sorrow  as  that  of  the  brilliant, 
gifted  Edwards.  No  one  had  been  more  widely  known  in  the  State, 
nnd  no  one  had  ever  been  more  highly  respected,  esteemed,  loved. 
The  great  love  which  all  his  old  comrades  evince  for  him,  is  the  best 
evidence  that  he  was  a  gallant  soldier  and  a  kind  and  generous  com- 
rade. He  has  been  the  chief  editorial  writer  on  nearly  all  the  lead- 
ing papers  of  the  State.  He  was  gifted  indeed.  His  "Poor 
Corlotta"  is  the  finest  composition,  most  splendid  word-painting,  in 
the  English  language.  He  has  a  large  number  of  old  comrades  in 
this  county  who  deeply  lament  his  death,  and  none  more  so  than 
the  writer  of  this,  who  met  him  nearly  twenty  years  ago  when  a 
friendship  began  which  had  never  been  interrupted.  But  every  one 
was  his  friend,  and  he  was  the  friend  of  every  one. 

MAJOR  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS  DEAD. 

[Higginsville  Leader.'] 

Major  Edwards  was  regarded  by  all  Western  newspaper  men  as 
belonging  to  a  brilliant  solar  journalistic  system  around  which  they 
clung  with  tenacity,  and  from  whose  brilliancy  they  took  pride  in 
reflecting  all  the  radiance  that  was  in  their  power  to  obtain.  He  is 
ffe  td.  He  has  gone  to  test  the  realities  of  an  unknown  world. 
Journalism  has  lost  a  brilliant  star,  society  has  lost  an  illustrious 
member,  Democracy  an  earnest,  effectual  laborer,  and  the  people  a 
true  friend.  In  the  hearts  of  the  people  who  knew  him  is  an  aching 
void.  In  the  hearts  of  those  who  knew  of  him,  is  deep-seated  sor- 
row and  sincere  regret.  Every  newspaper  in  the  land  will  contain  a 
panegyric  of  this  brave  soldier,  thorough  statesman,  editor,  his- 
torian, and  philanthropist. 

[Missouri  Statesman.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  the  soldier,  author,  and  journalist  is 
dead.  Brave,  daring,  and  chivalrous,  he  loved  and  was  loved  by  his 
men,  nnd  their  trust  in  him  was  sublime.  The  record  of  the 
achievements  of  Shelby  and  his  men  are  matters  of  history,  jtml  of 
all  of  these  Edwards  was  the  hero.  With  Shelby  he  went  to  Mcx  ico 
at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  and  there  also  he  made  a  record  to 
which  his  friends  point  with  pride.  Returning  home  he  once  more 
sought  the  printing  room,  but  as  a  writer,  and  his  pen  has  given  to 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  215 

the  world  works  that  will  remain  as  long  as  history  is  read.  No 
man  in  the  State  was  better  or  more  widely  known  than  Major 
Kd^ards,  and  he  numbered  his  friends  by  the  thousand,  who  will 
mourn  his  death  long  and  sincerely. 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Shelbina  Democrat] 

The  bright  journalist,  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  died  at  the 
McCarty  House,  in  Jefferson  City,  Saturday  last,  of  paralysis.  The 
news  of  an  event  so  unexpected  was  a  sad  surprise  to  the  friends  of 
the  brilliant  man  throughout  the  State.  "When  the  death  was 
announced  at  the  Capitol  half  of  the  members  of  both  bodies  of  the 
Legislature  left  their  seats  and  gathered  in  the  lobby  and  adjoining 
rooms.  Republicans  and  Democrats  alike  expressed  the  deepest 
sorrow  for  his  sudden  and  untimely  death  and  the  highest  sym- 
pathy for  his  bereaved  family.  During  the  recess  at  noon  nothing 
else  was  talked  about  among  the  crowds  at  the  various  hotels  but 
the  death  of  the  brilliant  journalist. 

MAJ.  JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Waverly  Times.] 

The  death  of  this  man,  so  universally  esteemed  by  the  people 
and  press  of  this  State,  is  an  irreparable  loss  to  journalism,  his  family, 
and  a  large  circle  of  friends.  He  was  by  general  consent  termed  a 
peculiar  man,  invested  with  an  originality  of  thought  that  painted 
tilt;  present  with  a  coloring  of  the  past,  whose  conceptions  of  the 
ii'finite  ruled  in  his  just  measure  of  manhood,  and  whose  integrity 
of  purpose  was  unquestioned.  He  was  a  bold  and  unflinching 
advocate  of  what  he  esteemed  just,  and  his  judgment  was  tem- 
pered with  charity.  That  he  was  more  than  ordinarily  esteemed, 
i  Ihe  universal  testimony  of  his  companions  in  arms  who  delight 
t-.}  sj>eak  of  his  utter  selfishness,  faultless  bravery,  and  many  acts  of 
kindness  on  the  march,  in  the  battle  and  the  camp,  where  he  made 
f ' -lends  who  were  proud  to  march  with  him  to  ^victory  or  defeat. 
And  >o  pusses  away  a  gentle,  loving,  moving  spirit  that  the  world 
!'  onurs  only  in  death. 

HE  WAS  A  BRAYE  MAN. 

[Clay  County  Progress.] 

In  the  death  of  John  N.  Edwards,  the  State  has  lost  one  of  its 
purest  citizens,  the  press  one  of  its  ablest  writers,  for  he  wrote  as 
if  from  inspiration ;  his  words  were  clean,  pure,  simple — they  carried 
weight  with  them — such  weight  as  few  writer's  words  carry.  Few 
newspaper  men  cared  to  cross  swords  with  John  N.  Edwards.  In 
him  the  nation  has  lost  one  of  her  fairest  sons.  He  battled  for  right, 
for  truth,  for  justice,  ai  d  for  the  prosperity  and  upbuilding  of  his 
native  land.  John  N.  Edwards  was  a  man  in  all  things.  He  was 
no  backbiter,  sneak,  coward,  vilifier, perjurer — he  was  a  brave  man, 
a  true  man;  he  spent  his  whole  life  in  doing  good — infighting  for 
the  right,  The  world  is  better  for  his  having  lived  in  it, 


216  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

THE  KNIGHTLIEST  OF  KNIGHTS. 

[Moberly  Monitor.] 

Major  Edwards  was  a  man  of  genius — a  genius  that  glowed  like  a 
furnace  and  sparkled  like  a  star.  His  writings  were  prose  poems  ; 
all  his  conceptions  were  unique,  all  his  compositions  were  complete. 
When  he  finished  an  article  on  any  favorite  theme,  he  left  littCa  to  be 
said  by  others  who  took  the  same  view. 

His  force  lay  in  the  energy  and  harmony  of  his  articles — in  the 
vigor  of  expression,  as  well  as  in  the  uniqueness  of  conception .  His 
pen,  like  his  sword,  was  always  at  the  command  of  his  friends,  when 
those  friends  advocated  a  cause  he  could  conscientiously  espouse. 
He  was  as  gallant  in  civil  as  in  warlike  times — brave,  chivalric, 
never  bending  the  knee  to  power,  never  crouching  at  the  feet  of  pat- 
ronage. Lofty  in  conception,  noble  in  purpose,  poetic  in  expression, 
and  pure  in  design,  his  articles  dropped  from  his  pen  like  liquid 
gems,  incrusting,  hardening,  sparkling  as  they  fell.  He  was  the 
knightliest  knight  that  ever  poised  a  lance  in  the  field  of  journa- 
lism— courageous  and  fearless,  generous  and  just.  He  sought 
no  advantage,  used  no  artifice,  employed  no  deceit,  but  met  his 
antagonist  front  to  front  and  steel  to  steel.  He  detested  shams, 
he  hated  hypocrisy,  he  abhorred  deceit.  What  he  was  on  New 
Year's  clay,  the  31st  of  December  found  him — always  the  champion 
of  the  defenseless,  the  defender  of  the  weak,  the  advocate  of  the 
right  as  he  saw  it,  the  enemy  of  wrong  wherever  found. 

MAJOR   JOHN  N.  EDWARDS. 

[Mexico  (Mo.)  Ledger.'] 

This  child  of  genius,  who  was  known  by  thousands  and  loved 
by  all  who  knew  him,  was  one  of  nature's  truest  noblemen.  He 
lived  more  for  his  fellows  than  for  himself.  Of  unflinching  con- 
viction, with  a  hatred  for  all  that  was  sham,  he  never  put  his  pen  to 
a  sentence  that  did  not  ring  with  force  and  truth.  Major  Edwards 
was  a  writer  whose  work  was  so  distinctively  his  own  that  he  had 
few  equals  and  no  superior  throughout  the  country.  Everything  to 
which  he  placed  his  pen  sparkled  with  a  quaint  originality  that 
filled  with  interest  every  sentence  that  emanated  from  his  wonder- 
ful brain.  Many  hearts  will  go  out  in  sorrow  at  the  news  of  this 
great  man's  death.  His  career  comes  to  a  close  in  the  zenith  of  his 
manhood.  Beloved  and  honored  he  stood  in  life;  revered  in  his 
memory  after  death.  This  genius  stood  alone  among  the  fellows  of 
his  profession  in  Missouri,  and  his  presence  was  their  inspiration. 
Those  who  knew  him  best  regret  his  death  the  most;  but  of  all  the 
mass  whose  acquaintance  with  this  king  among  men  was  confined  to 
a  perusal  of  the  powerful  and  interesting  products  of  his  brain,  not 
one  will  hesitate  to  cast  a  flower  upon  his  grave,  or  fail  to  drop  a 
tear  to  the  memory  of  one  who  loved  the  right. 

HE  LOVED  MISSOURI. 

[Tipton  Times.] 

We  have  stood  in  the  forest  and  seen  the  great  towering  oaks 
felled  by  the  woodman's  axe,  and,  with  a  crash  that  awoke  tb^ 
echoes,  it  lay  prostrate  on  the  earth;  as  we  gazed  into  vacant 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  217 

where  but  a  moment  before  it  reared  its  lofty  branches  and  swayed 
to  and  fro  iii  the  breeze,  and  surveyed  the  scars  and  bruises  its  fall 
had  inflicted  upon  the  surrounding  timber,  we  felt  impressed  with 
the  desolation  wrought.  Like  the  fallen  oak,  Major  Edwards'death 
has  left  a  vacancy  that  can  not  be  filled,  and  has  awakened  tender 
and  sympathetic  expressions  of  sorrow  throughout  the  State  ;  and 
like  it,  bruised  and  bleeding,  btmourn  his  eLd.  Pictures  of  the 
most  peaceful  pastoral  scenes,  the  bitter,  invective,  withering  sar- 
casms, poetic  flights,  and  cold,  logical  reasoning  were  frequently 
interspersed  in  the  same  article  in  the  most  fascinating  and  effective 
manner,  until  the  reader  from  lazily  contemplating  the  grazing  kind 
or  listening  to  the  lullaby  of  -the  brook  in  the  meadow,  was  startled 
by  being  confronted  by  some  appalling  crime. 

He  loved  Missouri  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  his  nature,  and 
labored  persistently  for  her  advancement.  He  knew  her  brave, 
sturdy,  honest  people,  and  few  men  had  the  power  to  touch  their 
hearts  as  he  did.  To  his  bereaved  family  we  tender  our  deeepest 
sympathy. 

[Weston  CTironicZe.] 

Major  Edwards,  a  title  which  he  gallantly  won  in  the  late  war, 
was  a  man  of  great  ability  and  force  of  character.  As  a  man  and 
journalist  his  friends  and  admirers  throughout  the  West,  and  partic- 
ularly in  Missouri,  were  numbered  by  legions.  In  this(Platte) 
county  he  had  hosts  of  ardent  friends,  who  sincerely  mourn  the 
departure  of  their  able,  warm  hearted,  brave,  and  generous  friend. 
His  journalistic  life  was  a  success  beyond  even  his  own  expectations. 
By  the  press,  and  by  all  who  had  perused  his  peculiarly  romantic 
and  ably-clad  thoughts,  he  was  regarded  the  equal  if  not  the  peer  of 
any  in  Western  journalism.  His  life  throughout,  as  a  civilian  and 
soldier,  was  marked  by  many  incidents  of  determination  to  accom- 
plish acts  of  great  worth  and  noble  results  both  to  himself  and  the 
cause  which  he  espoused  and  loved.  In  his  newspaper  career  he 
followed  no  man — every  idea  he  advanced  was  original,  and  every 
thought  expressed  was  copied  throughout  by  the  "press.  He  was 
honest  and  fearless,  and  never  published  a  line  which  he  did  not 
believe  to  be  the  truth  and  for  which  he  would  not  personally 
answer.  He  was  brave  and  generous  in  war  and  fearless  and  honest 
in  civil  life,  and  liberal  to  a  fault,  an  affectionate  husband  and  a 
kind  father,  and  his  death  has  left  a  vacancy  in  Missouri  journalism 
that  will  with  difficulty,  if  ever,  be  filled,  and  his  death  is  a  calam- 
ity to  the  press  of  the  State. 

DEATH  OF  MAJOR  EDWARDS- 

[Tarkio  Avalanche.] 

It  has  been  truly  said  by  a  contemporary  of  Major  Edwards, 
that  "no  pen  but  his  own  should  write  of  a  nature  like  that  of  the 
deceased  journalist."  In  his  character  was  blended  many  noble  ele- 
ments, embracing  qualities  that  are  seldom  found  grouped  in  the 
human  heart.  While  brave  and  impulsive,  and  ever  willing  to  face 
with  unsheathed  sword  opponents  of  his  sincere  convictions,  he  pos- 
sessed a  temperament  as  beautiful  and  sublime  as  a  balmy  spring 
morning.  Although  staunch,  almost  fierce,  in  his  denunciation  of 
those  who  combatted  his  ideas  of  propriety,  no  man  could  sooner 
drown  in  the  fountain  of  mercy  his  resentment  than  he.  While  he 
jealously  guarded  his  idols  and  dealt  strong  blows,  in  their  defense, 


218  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

he  could  admire  and  indorse  the  conscientious  conviction  that 
caused  others,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  attempt  their  over- 
throw. It  is  claimed  for  him,  and  we  believe  justly  so,  that,  despite 
his  devotion  to  principles,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  denounce  insincerity 
and  wrong  even  where  they  were  exercised  to  f  uither  such  princi- 
ples. When  he  indorsed  a  theory  he  considered  it  proper  to  put  on 
his  whole  armor  in  its  defense.  The  strategem  of  war  and  the 
diplomacy  of  peace  are  legitimate  elements  of  success,  and  they  are 
unhesitatingly  used,  but  with  Major  Edwards,  willful  and  broad 
deception  and  absolute  injustice  were  never  mistaken  for  these  qual- 
ities While  an  active  and  intense  partisan,  he  numbered  among  his 
true  friends  and  ardent  admirers  the  best  men  of  all  parties.  Such 
persons  drop  a  tear  on  his  bier  and  remember  only  his  high  and 
noble  qualities,  his  unique  personality. 

DEATH   OF  MAJOR  EDWARDS. 

[Argentine  Republic.] 

Major  Edwards  was  a  typical  American  hero,  and  one  of  the 
kind  wi;  always  loved  to  read  about.  He  was  a  man  of  convictions 
— served  through  the  war  on  the  Confederate  side — brave  to  a  fault, 
and  one  of  the  most  brilliant  writers  and  fighters  in  the  United 
States. 

Major  Edwards  was  a  man  that  made  his  enemies  love  and 
respect  him,  and  "what  he  failed  in  acetBiplisLir.g  ruling  tLe  wtr 
wiih  his  sword,  he  spent  the  nmairder  c  f  his  life  in  ]  rickii  g  ard 
cauterizing  with  the  sharpest-pointed  pen  that  ever  made  a  scratch 
on  paper.  Men  like  Edwards  may  "fold  the  drapery  of  their  couch 
around  them  and  lie  down  to  pleasant  dreams,"  but  they  never, 
never  die.  And  just  as  long  as  the  muddy  waters  continue  to  wash 
the  banks  of  poor  old  Missouri,  the  name  of  Edwards  will  be  an 
evening  hearthstone  spell  and  a  fadeless  memory. 

THE  DEATH  OF  AN  HONEST  MAN. 

[Kansas  City  (Kas.)  Gazette.] 

Thus  has  passed  away  one  of  the  shining  lights  of  journalism. 
The  pen  of  Major  Edwards  had  an  individuality  that  was  all  his  own. 
His  very  soul  seemed  to  creep  down  his  brave  right  arm  and  inspire 
the  very  ink  he  used.  His  style  was  original,  highly  figurative  and 
ornate, and  Republicansas  well  as  Democrats  delighted  to  follow  him 
in  print.  He  was  an  honest  man,  and  we  do  not  use  this  word  in  a 
conventional  sense,  but  in  all  its  width,  depth,  and  breadth.  He  fol- 
lowed the  truth  as  it  came  to  his  soul,  and  from  his  standpoint,  and 
was  a  genial  friend,  a  happy  husband,  and  a  noble  father. 

[Atchison  (Kas.)  Champion.] 

A  strange  coin  pound  was  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  who  died  on 
Saturday  last  at  Jefferson  City,  Missouri.  We  doubt  if  the  West 
has  ever  produced  as  brilliant  and  picturesque  a  writer  as  was  Major 
Edwards.  He  was,  as  a  word-painter,  a  genius.  His  powers  of 
description  were  marvelous.  Evidently  his  model  was  Victor  Hugo, 
but  he  was  not  an  imitator.  He  marshaled  his  words  as  a  soldier 
does  battalions,  and  the  blare  of  bugles  and  the  roll  of  drums  was  in 
tueir  onset. 

Personally,  he  was  a  kindly,  gentle,  lovable  man,  modest  as  a 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  219 

woman,  terder  as  a  child.  He  treasured  neither  wrongs  nor  hates. 
He  was  an  unselfish  friend  and  a  generous  opponent,  and  all  who 
knew  him  well  admired  and  respected  him. 

[Barber  County  (Kas.)  Index.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  best  known  newspaper 
men  in  Missouri  or  in  the  West,  died  at  Jefferson  City,  Mo.,  last 
Saturday.  Major  Edwards  was  not  an  ordinary  man.  His  physical 
strength  was  slight,  but  he  had  a  large  and  active  brain,  a  memory 
for  names,  dates,  and  faces  that  was  surprising.  A  friendship  was 
never  betrayed  or  voluntarily  broken  by  him.  The  word  friendship 
had  a  deeper  significance  with  him  than  with  most  men.  Ten 
thousand  who  have  known  him  long  and  well  and  who  appreciate 
nobility  of  character  will  grieve  over  the  loss  of  a  true  friend,  the 
press  will  regret  the  loss  of  one  of  its  most  brilliant  contributors,  and 
the  whole  State  of  Missouri  will  miss  an  active,  progressive,  talented 
citizen. 

[Plattsburg  (Mo.)  Jeffersonian.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards  has  created  profound 
and  genuine  sorrow  within  the  entire  borders  of  the  State.  His 
personal  and  mental  characteristics  were  outlined  amid  his  surround- 
ings, like  the  great  peaks  in  the  mountain  range.  His  individualism 
was  never  merged  in  his  associations.  The  world  admired  his 
brilliant  genius;  his  enemies  feared  his  terrific  wrath,  while  his 
friends  loved  him  for  his  gentle,  sweet,  and  generous  spirit  that 
shone  always  for  them.  He  filled  a  space  in  the  field  of  journalism 
which  was  peculiarly  his  own,  and  therefore  may  never  be  filled 
again. 

[Kansas  City  Live  Stock  Indicator.] 

As  a  writer  for  the  press,  and  as  an  author,  he  was  known  to  the 
general  public,  but  it  was  as  a  man— a  man  of  generous  impulses, 
of  steadfast,  stalwart  friendship — that  those  who  knew  him  inti- 
mately admired.  He  was  a  talented  writer,  imbued  with  sincerity 
of  purpose,  despising  shams  and  frauds— in  short,  one  who  was 
always  found  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  whenever  he  was  met. 
He  has  gone,  but  those  who  knew  Major  Edwards  personally,  and 
his  acquaintances  were  his  friends,  can  bear  testimony  to  his  nobil- 
ity of  character  and  unswerving  fidelity. 

[Marshall  (Mo.)  Democrat-News.] 

By  his  death  Missouri  loses  her  most  brilliant  writer,  and  the 
journalistic  world  an  editor  whose  like  we  ne'er  shall  see  again.  No 
man  could  be  gentler  to  a  friend  or  fiercer  to  a  foe;  and  in  writing 
of  one  he  loved,  or  of  a  cause  he  advocated,  he  was  as  gentle  as  a 
dove  and  as  delicate  as  a  woman;  but  in  denouncing  an  enemy  or 
opposing  a  measure  his  pen  was  a  rapier,  cutting  and  thrusting  at 
all  vulnerable  points.  His  style  was  all  his  own;  no  man  can  imi- 
tate it,  and  none  can  say  he  copied  it  from  man,  alive  or  dead. 

[Las  Vegas  (N.  M.)  Optic.] 

He  was  a  brilliant,  noble,  chivalric  gentleman,  with  hands  and 
heart  unstained  by  any  unclean  act. 

With  a  good  education,  a  copious  vocabulary,  a  vivid  imagina- 
tion, fixed  convictions,  and  dauntless  courage,  John  Edwards  could 
worry  his  enemies  and  gladden  the  hearts  of  his  friends  as  few  other 
writers  west  of  the  Missouri  could, 


220  JOHN  :;T:VOIA:;  EDWARDS 

[Wintield  (Kan.)  Telegram.] 

By  his  death  the  journalistic  profession  loses  one  of  its  brightest 
lights.  His  sentences  were  full  and  rounded,  and  each  a  glittering, 
intellectual  gem.  He  was  versed  in  ancient  history,  and  few  men 
possess  the  knowledge  he  possessed  of  the  political  situation  of  the 
Old  as  well  as  the  New  World.  Major  J.  N.  Edwards'  name  is 
engraved  on  the  hearts  of  thousands,  and  it  will  be  spoken  with 
reverence  by  coming  generations. 

[Emporia  (Kan.)  Democrat.] 

The  death  of  John  N.  Edwards  removes  from  the  newspaper 
field  one  of  the  brightest  and  keenest  writers  of  the  day. 

While  many  will  miss  his  smooth  and  forcible  paragraphs,tliose 
who  will  miss  him  most  are  those  who  knew  him  as  a  friend  in 
private  life. 

[Rocky  Mountain  (Col.)  News.] 

He  was  one  of  the  ablest  writers  in  the  West,  and  was  at  all 
times  a  gentleman.  Brave  as  the  legendary  lion,  Major  Edwards 
had  a  tender  heart  and  was  ever  ready  to  relieve  distress  in  any  of 
its  phases. 

[Liberty  (Mo.)  Tribune.] 

The  sudden  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards  recently,  at  the 
State  Capital,  was  a  sad,  unexpected  blow  to  his  numerous  friends 
and  acquaintances  throughout  the  West.  His  death  was  a  great  loss 
to  the  profession  to  which  he  belonged,  and  the  State  of  Missouri, 
which  hu  loved  so  well. 

[Lamar  (Mo.)  Democrat.] 

The  death  of  Major  Edwards  of  the  Kansas  City  Times  has 
caused  sorrow  wherever  he  was  known  or  heard  of.  To  kLow  him 
was  to  like  him;  to  know  him  well  was  to  love  him.  If  yon  were  his 
enemy  you  would  but  admire  him.  As  a  friend,  he  would  do  more 
and  go  further  than  anyone  else,  he  would  make  more  sacrifices  than 
any  other  friend,  he  was  true  as  steel,  and  he  never  was  known  to 
quail  in  times  of  danger. 

[Rich  Hill  (Mo.)  .Review.] 

Over  the  grave  of  John  N.  Edwards  we  pause  to  drop  a  tear  of 
sympathy  and  love.  He  was  a  true  child  of  genius,  a  writer,  his- 
torian, and  poet.  In  all  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  nature  the  corn 
mercial  had  no  place.  He  was  no  utilitarian,  and  in  this  time  and 
age  could  not  receive  the  appreciation  due  him.  Goodness  was 
enshrined  within  his  heart  and  from  this  fountain  flowed  love  and 
devotion,  bravery  and  chivalry,  and  all  the  attributes  of  a  great  soul. 
There  was,  there  will  be,  but  one  John  N.  Edwards. 

[Tipton  (Mo.)  Times.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards  is  gone.  His  warm,  sympathetic  heart 
is  still;  his  tender  blue  eyes  are  curtained  and  dark.  As  a  man,  he 
possessed  the  best  attributes  of  the  human  heart.  Honest,  brave, 
gentle,  modest,  unflinching  in  his  fidelity  to  his  friends,  he  stood 
forth  in  the  full  measure  of  manhood  and  commanded  the  highest 
admiration  of  all.  But  it  was  as  an  editor  that  he  reached  his 
highest  grandeur.  His  style  was  imitable, 

[Richmond  (Mo.)  Payitc.] 
He  was  ope  of  the  best-known  men  in  Missouri,     Brave,  brii- 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  221 

liant,  chivalric,  steadfast  in  his  friendships,  he  indirectly  exerted  a 
wonderful  influence  on  the  people,  and  left  behind  him  a  name  that 
will  live  in  history  as  long  as  time  shall  last.  His  newspaper  articles 
have  been  more  admired  and  copied  than  those  of  any  other  writer 
in  this  country,  and  the  fraternity  loses  its  best  and  most  brilliant 
star  in  his  demise. 

[Excelsior  Springs  (Mo.)  Herald.] 

It  was  with  no  little  sadness  we  learned  of  the  sudden  death 
of  our  esteemed  friend,  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas 
City  Times.  In  the  death  of  John  N.  Edwards,  Missouri  has  lost 
one  of  her  most  valuable  citizens  and  journalism  a  most  inimitable 
writer.  No  living  writer  wielded  a  more  felicitous  pen  or  knew 
better  how  to  touch  every  chord  in  the  human  heart.  He  was  the 
Nestor  of  Western  journalism. 

[Odessa  Democrat.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  which  occurred  at  Jeffer- 
son City  on  last  Saturday,  has  caused  universal  regret  throughout 
the  State.  Political  friend  and  opponent  alike  express  the  great  loss 
sustained  by  his  unexpected  death.  His  was  a  brilliant  pen  and  a 
warm  heart  that  was  touched  with  the  tenderest  sympathy  for  all 
that  were  distressed  or  in  need. 

[Fort  Scott  (Kan.)  Tribune.'] 

The  death  o.  Major  J.  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times, 
is  a  severe  loss  to  journalism  in  the  West.  Major  Edwards  was  one 
-of  the  most  caustic  and  incisive  editorial  writers  of  his  time.  He 
was  an  accurate  observer  of  events,  possessed  a  fund  of  historical  and 
classical  knowledge  scarcely  ever  attained  by  current  writers,  and 
withal  a  happy  faculty  of  making  friends  and  retaining  them. 

[Moberly  (Mo.)  Monitor.] 

Few  writers  of  the  West  were  better  posted  than  Major  John  N. 
Edwards,  the  knight  errant  of  political  journalism.  In  his  death 
journalism  has  lost  a  jewel,  society  an  ornament,  and  humanity  a 
friend.  It  is  with  pride  that  the  writer  of  this  article  can  say.  He 
was  my  friend. 

[Atchison  (Kan.)  Globe.] 

John  N.  Edwards,  famous  as  a  soldier  and  editor,  died  at  Jef- 
ferson City  qn  Saturday  at  the  age  of  51.  A  book  might  be 
written  of  this  man;  of  his  brave  deeds,  his  big  heart,  his  gentle 
nature,  his  native  modesty  and  unselfishness,  and  his  wonderful 
charm  as  a  writer. 

[Holton  (Kan.]  Record.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  editor  of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  died 
suddenly  in  Jefferson  City,  Mo.,  on  Saturday.  He  was  an  original 
and  unique  writer,  and  whatever  came  from  his  pen  was  clothed 
with  the  adornment  of  imagery  and  romance. 

[Hamilton,  (Mo.)  News-Graphic.] 

The  announcement  last  Saturday  of  the  death  of  Major  John  N. 
Edwards  was  a  great  surprise  and  sad  news  to  the  many  thousands 
of  friends  and  admirers  of  the  deceased  throughout  the  State.  A 
braver,  truer,  or  nobler  man  than  John  N.  Edwards  never  lived. 

[Cass  County  (Mo.)  Democrat.] 
Major  John  N.  .Edwards,  of  The  Kansas  City  Times,  died  in 


222  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Jefferson  City  last  week.  He  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
versatile  writers  in  the  country,  and  few  men  in  the  State  had  more 
or  warmer  friends. 

[Wichita  (Kan.)  Journal.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  the  well-known  editorial  writer  of 
The  Kansas  City  Times,  died  suddenly  at  Jefferson  City  Satur- 
day. He  was  noted  as  one  of  the  most  forcible  writers  in  the  West 
and  a  man  of  strong  convictions. 

[Mexico  (Mo.)  Ledger.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  which  occurred  at 
Jefferson  City  Saturday  morning,  spreads  a  gloom  throughout  the 
State.  This  child  of  genius,  who  was  known  by  thousands,  and 
loved  by  all  who  knew  him,  was  one  of  nature's  truest  noblemen. 

[Holton  (Kan.)  Signal.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  Kansas  City,  one  of  the  brightest 
and  most  versatile  writers  in  the  West,  died  at  Jefferson  City  last 
Saturday.  He  was  a  great,  generous  man,  and  had  many  friends. 

[Clinton  (Mo.)  Democrat.'] 

In  the  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City 
Times,  the  press  has  lost  one  of  its  brightest  jewels,  humanity  one  of 
its  bravest  and  truest  defenders. 

[Topeka  (Kan.)  Capital.! 

Major  J.  N.  Edwards,  whose  untimely  death  at  Jefferson  City 
occurred  on  Saturday,  was  an  elegant  and  forcible  writer,  gifted 
with  a  rnind  of  no  ordinary  quality. 

[Breckenridge  (Mo.)  Bulletin.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  is  no  more. 
He  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  writers  and  agreeable  of  gentlemen 
in  the  United  States. 

[Topeka  (Kan.)  Democrat.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  editorial 
writers  in  the  West,  died  at  Jefferson  City  on  Saturday,  of  heart 
affection. 

[Neosho  Times.] 

One  of  Missouri's  brightest  journalists  and  best  men  has  passed 
from  this  earthly  life  to  a  happier  one,  that  will  never  end.  The 
State  has  lost  a  true  and  frank  and  generous  man,  who,  by  his  fine 
abilities  and  straightforward  force  of  character,  by  his  high  sense 
of  honor  and  unswerving  faithfulness  to  all  his  convictions,  and  by 
his  noble  traits  of  soul,  had  gained  honor,  influence,  and  troops  of 
friends. 

[Cooper  County  Leader.] 

John  N.  Edwards  the  brilliant  journalist  is  dead.  In  the  zenith 
of  his  manhood  he  was  stricken  with  paralysis,  and  in  a  few  short 
hours  he  yielded  up  a  life  in  which  every  Missourian  had  an  interest 
— courageous  and  generous  to  a  fault,  kind  hearted  and  gentle  as  a 
woman.  At  an  early  age  he  was  thrown  upon  his  own  resources. 
Inspired  by  genius  and  ambition,  he  began  at  once  to  climb  the  dizzy 
heights  of  fame.  As  a  journalistic  writer,  John  N.  Edwards  hud  but 
few,  if  any,  equals.  He  possessed  to  an  eminent  degree  the  happy 
faculty  of  expressing  his  thoughts  with  a  brilliancy  of  diction  that 
was  at  once  inimitable.  Thinking  and  caring  more  for  the  interest 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  223 

of  his  people  than  for  himself,  he  of ttiine?   sacrificed  his  personal 
interests  for  the  advancement  of  his  friends. 
[Parkville  Independent.] 

John  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  best  known  and,  perhaps,  most 
influential  newspaper  men  of  Missouri,  died  at  Jefferson  City  on  la.^t 
Saturday.  As  a  newspaper  writer,  he  had  been  before  the  people  of 
Missouri  for  many  years,  and  there  is  but  little  doubt  that  he  was  the 
most  widely  known  of  any  editorial  writer  of  which  our  State  could 
boast. 

[Kendall  County  (Kan.)  Banner.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  Missouri,  died  at  Jefferson  City  on 
Saturday  of  last  week,  and  has  been  laid  to  rest  by  loving  hands  and 
•with  sorrowful  hearts.  He  was  a  high  type  of  Missouri's  noblest 
manhood,  and  the  earth  has  not  produced  its  superior.  As  an  author 
and  editor,  he  has  left  a  name  that  will  live  through  ages;  and  as  a 
friend,  comrade,  and  brother,  his  memory  will  be  kept  green  in  the 
hearts  of  thousands  of  his  fellow  nteu. 

[Hill  City  Democrat.] 

Major  J.  N.  Edwards,  of  Kansas  City,  died  last  Friday  at  Jef- 
ferson City,  Mo.,  with  heart  disease.      Major  Edwards  was  a  promi- 
nent journalist  and  writer.     Above  all,  he  was  a  brave,  true  hearted 
man,  and  his  death  is  sincerely  mourned  by  all  who  knew  him. 
[Pleasant  Hill  Local.'] 

He  was  a  gifted  and  brilliant  writer,  anu  was  the  author  of 
several  valuable  works.  He  was  a  liberal  and  large-hearted  man, 
beloved  by  all  who  knew  him,  ever  ready  to  lend  a  helping  hand  to 
the  needy  and  unfortunate,  to  take  sides  with  the  weak  against  the 
strong,  to  shield  the  wronged  and  oppressed.  His  death  will  cause 
the  deepest  sorrow  throughout  this  country  and  wherever  he  was 
known. 

[London  Democrat.] 

He  was  brave— he  knew  no  fear — even  in  the  sad  ordeal  that 
we  must  all  meet  he  was  still  the  same  gallant  John  N.  Edwards. 
Death  had  no  terrors  for  him.  He  was  an  exceptional  man  in  many 
respects.  He  never  courted  trouble,  but  always  met  it  boldly. 
His  whole  life  was  an  open  book;  his  actions  were  above  suspicion. 
Wealth  had  no  charms  for  him  except  so  far  as  he  could  do  good 
with  it.  He  was  one  man  in  a  million.  As  a  writer,  he  had  no 
superior  in  this  State.  He  was  full  of  personal  magnetism.  Asa 
soldier,  he  led  and  never  followed;  as  a  man,  he  was  the  peer  of  any; 
as  a  friend,  none  could  be  warmer  or  nearer;  as  a  newspaperman, 
there  were  but  few  who  could  equal  him. 

[Newton  (Kan.)  Republican.] 

The  particulars  of  the  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  ~vho 
was  chief  editorial  writer  of  the  Kansas  City  Times,  are  given  on 
first  page.  He  was  a  Confederate  officer,  and  for  twenty  years  he 
has  been  a  unique  figure  in  Western  journalism.  He  had  a  style  and 
richness  of  expression  peculiarly  his  own  and  bearing  the  impress 
of  an  uncommon  personality. 

[Osagre  City  (Kan.)  Free  Press.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  editorial 
writers  in  the  West,  died  in  Jefferson  City  on  Saturday  of  heart 
affection.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was  on  the  staff  of  the  Kan- 
sas City  Times. 

[Miami  (Mo.)  News.] 
The  sudden  death  of  that  brilliant  journalist  and  nobleman, 


224  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  on  Saturday  last,  at  Jefferson  City,  casts  a 
shadow  of  sorrow  over  the  whole  State.  His  editorial  writing 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  country.  It  was  inimitable  and  unsur- 
passed. 

[Jonesport  Gazette.} 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  well  known  throughout  Missouri, 
died  suddenly  at  Jefferson  City  on  Saturday.  He  was  a  brilliant 
journalist  and  wrote  in  a  style  all  his  own. 

[Kingmaii  County  (Kan.)  Democrat.} 

Major  Edwards  was  one  of  the  foremost  men  of  Missouri,  and 
lost  no  opportunity  to  serve  his  State.  His  early  death  will  be 
mourned  by  the  thousands  all  over  the  West  who  esteem  men  by  the 
good  they  do  rather  than  by  the  wealth  and  fame  they  obtain. 

[Gallatin  (Mo.)  Democrat.} 

Major  John  N.  Edwards  was  one  of  Missouri's  brilliant  journal- 
ists, and  many  mourn  that  the  pen  has  dropped  from  his  hand  ere 
the  intellect  that  controlled  it  had  reached  the  zenith  of  its  power. 
He  was  a  man  of  kind  thoughts,  mighty  hopes,  and  gentle  deeds,  but 
life,  with  its  activities,  bringing  the  fruits  of  honor  and  joy,  has 
closed,  and  he  slumbers  with  the  dead,  leaving  to  his  friends  a  mem- 
ory as  fragrant  with  the  sweet  amenities  of  life  as  the  perfume 
exhaled  by  the  roses  of  May  which  loving  hands  will  scatter  upon 
his  grave. 

[Mexico  Intelligencer.'] 

There  were  few  men  in  the  State  better  known  or  more 
universally  respected  than  Major  Edwards.  He  was  a  man  of  geu- 
erous  impulses,  true  to  his  friends  under  any  and  all  circumstances. 
As  a  newspaper  writer,  he  had  a  style  peculiarly  his  own,  and  his 
articles  commanded  wide-spread  admiration,  No  whisper  of  sus- 
picion was  ever  raised  against  his  personal  integrity.  He  died  poor 
save  in  the  respect  and  affections  of  those  who  knew  him  best. 

Major  Edwards  was  one  of  the  readiest  writers  and  brilliant 
newspaper  men  in  the  West,  with  a  style  peculiarly  his  own,  not 
excelled  anywhere. 

Major  Edwards  was  as  bold  and  resolute  in  his  positions  that 
he  believed  to  be  right  as  a  lion,  still  was  kind  and  gentle  as  a  child, 
never  bearing  resentments,  no  matter  how  badly  misrepresented  or 
traduced.  In  his  friendships  he  was  as  true  as  the  needle  to  the 
pole,  and  never  allowed  outside  clamor  or  censure  to  swerve  him  a 
particle. — The  Brunswicker. 

[Linneus  BuUetin.] 

The  sudden  death  of  Major  Jno.  N.  Edwards,  at  Jefferson  City, 
last  Saturday,  has  called  forth  an  expression  of  sorrow  and  regret 
throughout  the  country.  He  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  journal- 
ists in  the  State,  and  had  been  for  years  one  of  the  acknowledged 
leaders  of  the  Democratic  party.  His  talents  and  his  virtues  have 
won  for  him  a  warm  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  Missouri. 
They  loved  him  and  his  memory  they  will  ever  cherish. 

[Central  Missourian.} 

Major  Edwards  was  the  embodiment  of  most  of  the  noble  char- 
acteristics that  go  to  make  all  that  is  admirable  in  manhood.  John 
N.  Edwards  needs  no  introduction  to  our  readers, 'many  of  them 
having  shared  with  him  the  hardships  and  dangers  of  the  bivouac 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  225 

and  battle-field,  but  we  are  sorry  that  want  of  space  prevents  our 
giving  a  more  extended  notice  of  his  life  and  death.  We  will  try 
and  do  so  in  our  next  issue. 

[Paola  (Kan.)  Republican,'] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City 
Times,  at  Jefferson  City,  Saturday  morning,  closed  the  career  of  a 
talented,  able  editor  who  was  the  most  popular  and  widely-known 
newspaper  man  in  the  West.  His  death  is  deeply  mourned  by  all 
who  knew  him,  and  more  particularly  by  his  Missouri  friends,  who 
knew  him  best  and  to  whom  he  was  most  endeared. 

[Las  Vegas  (N.  M.)  Qptfe.] 

Kansas  City  and  all  the  Democrats  in  Missouri,  with  a  large  Re- 
publican contingent,  are  mourning  the  death  of  John  N.  Edwards. 
We  shall  not  soon  look  upon  his  like  again. 

[Dickinson  Co.  (Kan.)  News.'] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  probably  the  most  picturesque  figure 
in  Missouri,  died  at  Jefferson  City  last  Saturday.  He  was  with 
Shelby  in  the  Confederate  service,  and  was  a  beau  ideal  of  a  daring, 
chivalric  soidier.  His  style  was  fervent  and  poetical,  and  at  all 
times  interesting.  He  was  a  gentleman  in  the  strictest  meaning  of 
that  term,  and  his  death  will  be  widely  regretted. 

[Butler  Times.] 

The  sad  and  unexpected  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards  was 
received  in  this  city  by  his  many  friends  with  profound  sorrow.  He 
was  the  most  brilliant  newspaper  writer  in  the  State. 

[Emporia  (Kan.)  News.] 

His  style  was  entirely  his  own,  and  abounded  in  rhetorical  fig- 
ures, which  fell  from  his  pen  as  words  from  a  good  talker.  He  was 
an  intense  Democrat,  and'always  wrote  from  conviction. 

[Sweet  Springs  Herald.'] 

As  a  journalist,  he  possessed  rare  attainments,  and  ranked  with 
the  first  of  the  land.  He  had  many  warm  personal  friends  over  the 
entire  State,  who  are  shocked  at  his  untimely  death.  He  was  a  true 
friend,  a  chivalrous  enemy,  a  noble  man 

[Cole  Co.  Democrat.] 

The  sudden  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  which  occurred 
in  this  city  on  the  4th  instant,  was  a  severe  shock  to  his  very  many 
friends  and  admirers  throughout  the  State.  Perhaps  no  man  in  the 
State  commanded  a  wider  circle  of  friends  than  he.  Major  Edwards 
was  a  brilliant  writer,  and  had  occupied  a  prominent  position  in  the 
journalistic  field  for  many  years.  He  was  a  brilliant  man,  a  true 
friend,  and  his  death  leaves  a  vacancy  not  easily  filled  and  univer- 
sally regretted. 

[Springfield  Leader.] 

He  was  talented,  courageous,  gentle,  and  devoted.  His  honor 
was  never  tarnished.  He  knew  no  such  words  as  "mine"  and 
"thine."  His  boundless  librality  and  charity  kept  him  poor  in  the 
goods  of  the  world  but  rich  in  acts  of  beneficence.  In  politics  he 
was  positive,  uncompromising,  and  unrelenting  where  a  principle 
was  involved,  but  after  the  battle  and  victory  won  there  was  no 


226  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

exultation  in  his  heart  or  in  his  acts.  In  his  death,  the  press  of  Mis- 
souri loses  its  brightest  light  and  the  Democratic  party  its  ablest 
champion. 

[Burlington  Republican.'] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times, 
removes  the  most  terse,  forcible,  and  brilliant  writer  in  the  West. 
There  was  a  peculiar  individuality  about  his  work  that  anyone 
familiar  with  it  could  readily  recognize.  His  figures  of  speech  were 
happily  selected  apt  and  striking,  and  his  diction  in  every  respect 
elegant.  He  was  an  ex-Confederate  who  served  under  Shelby,  and 
was  always  an  ardent  Democrat,  but  his  work  as  a  journalist  was 
none  the  less  admirable  and  worthy  of  imitation  by  those  who  seek 
to  attain  excellence. 

[Huron  Headlight.'} 

We  have  for  a  long  time  regarded  MajorEdwards  as  one  of  the 
most  vigorous  editorial  writers  in  the  country.  He  was  a  fineclass- 
ical  scholar,  and  many  brilliant  paragraphs  flowed  from  his  ready 
pen. 

[Blue  Springs  Herald.'] 

In  the  death  of  Major  Edwards,  the  people  have  lost  a  friend. 
He  was  ever  on  the  side  of  the  laborer,  the  poor,  the  needy,  and  the 
patriot.  He  had  wonderful  powers  of  expression  and  his  descrip- 
tions were  unsurpassed.  His  mind  was  a  storehouse  of  facts 
gathered  from  extensive  reading  and  observation,  possessing  a 
wonderfully  retentive  memory.  He  was  terrific  in  controversy, 
discharging  a  whole  battery  of  shot  and  shell  that  demolishes  the 
stoutest.  He  was  exact  in  honesty  and  fair-dealing,  a  choice  friend, 
and  a  noble  man,  and  is  a  great  loss  to  the  Democratic  party,  that 
cannot  be  easily  gained. 

[Slater  Rustler.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  Edwards  is  mourned  in  every  house- 
hold throughout  the  State.  He  was  a  man  whom  all  loved  and 
admired  for  his  high  character,  as  a  man,  soldier,  citizen,  and  journal- 
ist. As  a  journalist,  we  may  look  in  vain  for  another  who  can  fill 
his  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  Missouri. 

[Salina  (Kan.)  Herald.] 

Major  Edwards  was  the  ablest  editorial  writer  west  of  the  great 
Mississippi  River.  As  a  political  writer,  he  had  no  superior  and  few 
equals  anywhere.  Bold  and  fearless  in  the  expression  of  his  opinion, 
his  editorials  were  read  by  thousands  of  readers  with  profit  and 
delight. 

[Milan  Standard.] 

Major  J.  N.  Edwards  died  at  Jefferson  Citv  on  the  5th.  With 
Mr.  Edwards  passes  away  a  brilliant  journalist,  and  one  whose 
death  makes  sad  many  households  in  the  State  of  Missouri. 

[Brookfleld  Argus.] 

It  will  be  a  long  time  before  his  place  will  be  filled.  Major 
Edwards  had  many  admirers  and  friends  throughout  the  State. 
Unlike  any  other  journalist  in  the  West,  his  style  was  original  and 
unique.  His  life  and  associations  with  his  fellow  men  was  full  of 
love  and  tenderness,  and  his  writings  were  like  his  life. 

[Meade  Center  Democrat.] 
He  was  one  of   the-best  known  newspaper  men  in  the  West. 


NEWSPAPER  TRIBUTES.  227 

The  story  of  his  life  reads  like  a  romance.    He  was  a  brave  soldier, 
an  author  of  ability,  and  a  leader  in  journalists'  circles 

[Albany  Republican .  ] 

John  N.  Edwards  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  successful 
editorial  writers  in  the  West,  and  perhaps  one  of  the  most  intensely 
partisan.  He  was  always  a  brave  man,  and  carried  with  him 
unflinchingly  the  courage  of  his  convictions. 

[Lathrop  Monitor.] 

He  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  writers  in  the  State  and  had 
won  a  national  reputation  as  an  author. 

*  [Soldier  City  (Kan.)  Tribune.'] 

Mr.  Edwards  was  a  great  writer,  and  his  death  ends  the  career 
of  one  of  Missouri's  brightest  and  ablest  journalists. 

[Tola  (Kan.)  Republican.] 

One  of  the  most  striking  personalities  and  altogether  the  most 
picturesque  and  original  writer  in  the  West  passed  from  earth  last 
Saturday  when  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  of  the  Kansas  City  Times, 
breathed  his  last. 

[Selbina  Torchlight.] 

The  death  of  Major  John  N.  Edwards,  which  occurred  last 
Saturday  at  Jefferson  City,  removes  from  the  ranks  of  journalism 
one  of  Missouri's  brightest  and  most  vigorous  writers.  He  was  a 
gallant  soldier,  an  honest,  fearless  man,  and  a  true  friend. 

[Lee's  Summit  Journal.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  brightest  journalists  of  the 
country,  died  suddenly  at  Jefferson  City  Saturday.  He  was  a  man 
(•f  noble  and  generous  impulses,  the  idol  of  his  old  army  comrades, 
t.nd  a  writer  who  had  no  imitators. 

[Rich  Hill  Enterprise.] 

Major  J.  N.  Edwards,  one  of  the  brightest  and  most  noted 
journalists  in  Missouri,  died  at  Jefferson  City  Saturday  morning. 

[Howard  County  Democrat.] 

Major  Edwards  was  a  brilliant  journalist;  every  line  he  penned 
sparkled  like  a  jewel.    Brave   and  courageous,  the  press  of  the 
State  has  not  only  lost  its  most    brilliant  member,  butthe  Demo- 
cratic party  a  wise  counselor. 

[Clinton  Democrat.] 

No  words  of  ours  can  add  to  the  many  laurels  he  has  won  and 
so  modestly  and  appropriately  worn.  If  faults  he  had,  we  all  have 
them,  let  us  forget  them,  and  remember  only  his  merits  and 
his  virtues,  of  which  he  had  more  than  fall  to  the  lot  of  many 
mortals. 

[Rich  Hill  Review.] 

Never  again  shall  his  clarion  call  be  heard  in  the  ranks  of  jour- 
nalism summoning  up  the  chivalry  of  human  nature  to  do  battle  for 
honor  and  glory.  His  voice  always  heard  in  behalf  of  his  con- 
science, giving  expresssion  to  the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful, 
is  silent  forever,  but  his  memory  will  live  in  the  hearts  of  all  true 
Missourians,  and  will  be  like  some  rare  painting  from  the  hand  of 
genius  that  time,  while  softening  the  tints  and  outlines,  will  not 
dim  but  prove  an  inspiration  and  a  legacy  to  generations  yet 
unborn. 


228  JOHN  NEWMAN  EDWARDS. 

[Hope  (Kas.,)  Herald.] 

Major  John  N.  Edwards,  the  well-known  editorial  writer  on  the 
Kansas  City  Tiroes,  died  last  Saturday.  He  was  a  fine  writer  and  a 
big,  noble-hearted  man/and  the  profession,  in  his  death,  loses  one  of 
its  best  and  brightest  members. 

[Palmyra  Spectator.] 

Major  Edwards  was  well  known  throughout  the  State  as  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  and  graceful  writers  that  ever  graced  the  tripod, 
and  there  is  deep  sorrow  in  the  hearts  of  the  multitudes,  who  loved 
and  admired  him  for  his  many  noble  qualities  and  rare  talents,  over 
the  news  of  his  death.    To  the  people  he  was  ever  a  friend,  coun- 
selor, and  guide,  and  to  the  Democracy  a  tower  of  strength.      Few 
men  will  be  missed  more  than  Major  Edwards,  and  the  expression 
of  sorrow  manifested  on  all  hands  at  his  demise  indicate  the  nobl 
character  of  the  man  and  the  warm  place  he  held  in  the  hearts  o 
the  people. 

[Christian  County  Republican.] 

The  most  brilliant  writer  Missouri  ever  nurtured  to  greatnes 
has   passed  away.     The  master  of  a  style  of  vivid  splendor,  he 
like  Goldsmith,  "  touched  nothing  which  he  did  not  adorn."    Hi 
strangely  captivating  style  glittered  with  metaphors  that  wer 
drawn  from  his  reminiscences  of  the  stormy  but  entrancing  day 
when  the  great  conflict  filled    men's    hearts  with    emotion    am 
elevated  their  minds  with  thoughts  of  epic  grandeur.    Of  rhetoric 
Major  Edwards  was  a  very  lord,  painting  in  the  chambers  of  his 
imagery  pictures  of  vermilion  and  gold.      In  his  perfect  diction 
there  was  always  present  that  stimulus,  that  power  of  opening 
vistas  vast,  as  we  see  in  dreams,  which  it  is  the  privilege  of  geniu 
only  to  possess.     Many  a  Missourian  must  feel  that  when  John  N 
Edwards  died  it  was  as  if  the  bright  star  Aldebaran  had  fadec 
forever  from  the  sight  of  men. 


SHELBY'S 


EXPEDITION  TO  ]\^EXICO 


UNWRITTEN  LEAF 


THE   WAR 


BY 

JOHN  N.  EDWARDS 

AUTHOR  OF  "SHELBY  AND  HIS  MEN,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


KANSAS  CITY,  Mo. : 
JENNIE  EDWARDS,  PUBLISHER 

1889 


COPYRIGHTED 
JENNIE    EDWARDS 


SHELBY'S 

EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

AN  UNWKITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAE. 


CHAPTEB  I. 

"  They  rode  a  troop  of  bearded  men, 
Rode  two  and  two  out  from  the  town. 
And  some  were  blonde  and  some  were  brown, 
And  all  as  brave  as  Sioux;  but  when 
From  San  Bennetto  south  the  line 
That  bound  them  to  the  haunts  of  men 
Was  passed,  and  peace  stood  mute  behind 
And  streamed  a  banner  to  the  wind 
The  world  knew  not,  there  was  a  sign 
Of  awe,  of  silence,  rear  and  van. 
Men  thought  who  never  thought  before; 
I  heard  the  clang  and  clash  of  steel, 
From  sword  at  hand  or  spur  at  heel, 
And  iron  feet,  but  nothing  more. 
Some  thought  of  Texas,  some  of  Maine, 
But  more  of  rugged  Tennessee— 
Of  scenes  in  Southern  vales  of  wine, 
And  scenes  in  Northern  hills  of  pine, 
As  scenes  they  might  not  meet  again; 
And  one  of  Avon  thought,  and  one 
Thought  of  an  isle  beneath  the  sun, 
And  one  of  Rowley,  one  the  Rhine, 
And  one  turned  sadly  to  the  Spree . " 

JOAQUIN  MILLER. 

WHAT  follows  may  read  like  a  romance;  it  was  the  saddest  reality 
this  life  could  offer  to  many  a  poor  fellow  who  now  sleeps  in  a  for- 
eign and  forgotten  grave  somewhere  in  the  tropics — somewhere 
between  the  waters  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

The  American  has  ever  been  a  wayward  and  a  truant  race. 
There  are  passions  which  seem  to  belong  to  them  by  some  strange 
fatality  of  birth  or  blood.  In  every  port,  under  all  flags,  upon  every 


232  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

island,  shipwrecked  and  stranded  upon  the  barren  or  golden  shores 
of  adventure,  Americans  can  be  found,  taking  fate  as  it  comes — a 
devil-may-care,  reckless,  good-natured,  thrifty  and  yet  thriftless 
race,  loving  nothing  so  well  as  their  country  except  an  enterprise 
full  of  wonder  and  peril.  Board  a  merchant  vessel  in  mid-ocean 
and  there  is  an  American  at  the  wheel.  Steer  clear  of  a  lean,  lank, 
rakish-looking  craft  beating  up  from  the  windward  toward  Yuca- 
tan, and  overboard  as  a  greeting,  comes  the  full  roll  of  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  voice,  half -familiar  and  half  piratical.  The  angular  features 
peer  out  from  under  sombreros,  bronzed  and  brown  though  they 
may  be,  telling  of  faces  seen  somewhere  about  the  cities — eager* 
questioning  faces,  a  little  sad  at  times,  yet  always  stern  enough  for 
broil  or  battle.  They  cruise  in  the  foreign  rivers  and  rob  on  the 
foreign  shores.  Whatever  is  uppermost  finds  ready  hands.  No 
guerrillas  are  more  daring  than  American  guerrillas;  the  church  has 
no  more  remorseless  despoilers;  the  women  no  more  ardent  and 
faithless  lovers;  the  haciendas  no  more  sturdy  defenders;  the  wine 
cup  no  more  devoted  proselytes;  the  stranger  armies  no  more  heroic 
soldiers;  and  the  stormy  waves  of  restless  emigration  no  more  sinster 
waifs,  tossed  hither  and  thither,  swearing  in  all  tongues — rude, 
boisterous,  dangerous  in  drink,  ugly  at  cards,  learning  revolver-craft 
quickest  and  surest,  and  dying  as  they  love  to  die,  game  to  the 
last. 

Of  such  a  race  came  all  who  had  preceded  the  one  thousand  Con- 
federates led  by  Shelby  into  Mexico.  He  found  many  of  them 
there.  Some  he  hung  and  some  he  recruited,  the  last  possibly  not 
the  best. 

The  war  in  the  Trans-Mississippi  Department  had  been  a  holiday 
parade  for  some;  a  ceaseless  battle  and  raid  for  others.  Shelby's 
division  of  Missourians  was  the  flower  of  this  army.  He  had  formed 
and  fashioned  it  upon  an  ideal  of  his  own.  He  had  a  maxim, 
borrowed  from  Napoleon  without  knowing  it,  which  was:  "Young 
men  for  war."  Hence  all  that  long  list  of  boy  heroes  who  died 
before  maturity  from  Pocahontas,  Arkansas,  to  Newtonia,  Mis- 
souri, died  in  that  last  march  of  1864,  the  stupidest,  wildest, 
wantonest,  wickedest  march  ever  made  by  a  general  who  had  a 
voice  like  a  lion  and  a  spring  like  a  guinea  pig.  Shelby  did  the 
fighting,  or,  rather,  what  he  could  of  it.  After  Westport,  eight 
hundred  of  these  Missourians  were  buried  in  a  night.  The  sun  that 
set  at  Mine  Creek  set  as  well  upon  a  torn  and  decimated  division, 
bleeding  at  every  step,  but  resolute  and  undaunted.  That  night  the 
dead  were  not  buried. 

Newtonia  came  after — the  last  battle  west  of  the  Mississippi 
river.  It  was  a  prairie  fight,  stern,  unforgiving,  bloody  beyond  all 
comparison  for  the  stakes  at  issue,  fought  far  into  the  night,  and 
won  by  him  who  had  won  so  many  before  that  he  had  forgotten  to 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  233 

count  them.  General  Blunt  is  rich,  alive  and  a  brave  man  and  a 
happy  man  over  in  Kansas.  He  will  bear  testimony  again,  as  he 
has  often  done  before,  that  Shelby's  lighting  at  Newtonia  surpassed 
any  he  had  ever  seen.  Blunt  -was  a  grim  fighter  himself,  be  it 
remembered,  surpassed  by  none  who  ever  held  the  border  for  the 
Union. 

The  retreat  southward  from  Newtonia  was  a  famine.  The 
flour  first  gave  out,  then  the  meal,  then  the  meat,  then  the  medicines. 
The  recruits  suffered  more  in  spirit  than  in  flesh,  and  fell  out  by 
the  wayside  to  die.  The  old  soldiers  cheered  them  all  they  could 
and  tightened  their  own  sabre  belts.  Hunger  was  a  part  of  their 
rations.  The  third  day  beyond  the  Arkansas  river,  hunger  found 
an  ally — smallpox.  In  cities  and  among  civilized  beings  this  is 
fearful.  Among  soldiers,  and,  therefore,  machines,  it  is  but  another 
name  for  death.  They  faced  it  as  they  would  a  line  of  battle, 
waiting  for  the  word.  That  came  in  this  wise:  Shelby  took  every 
wagon  he  could  lay  his  hands  upon,  took  every  blanket  the  dead 
men  left,  and  improvised  a  hospital.  While  life  lasted  in  him,  a 
soldier  was  never  abandoned.  There  was  no  shrinking;  each 
detachment  in  detail  mounted  guard  over  the  terrible  cortege — 
protected  it,  camped  with  it,  waited  upon  it,  took  its  chances  as  it 
took  tys  rest.  Discipline  and  humanity  fraternized.  The  weak 
hands  of  the  one  were  intertwined  with  the  bronzed  hands  of  the 
other.  Even  amid  the  pestilence  there  was  poetry. 

The  gaps  made  in  the  ranks  were  ghastly.  Many  whom  the 
bullets  had  scarred  and  spared  were  buried  far  from  soldierly 
bivouacs  or  battle-fields  War  has  these  species  of  attacks,  all  the 
more  overwhelming  because  of  their  inglorious  tactics.  Fever  can 
not  be  fought,  nor  that  hideous  leprosy  which  kills  after  it  has 
defaced. 

One  day  the  end  came,  after  much  suffering  and  heroism  and 
devotion.  A  picture  like  this,  however,  is  only  painted  that  one 
may  understand  the  superb  organization  of  that  division  which  was 
soon  to  be  a  tradition,  a  memory,  a  grim  war  spirit,  a  thing  of  gray 
and  glory  f  orevermore. 

After  the  ill-starred  expedition  made  to  Missouri  in  1864,  the 
Trans-Mississippi  army  went  to  sleep.  It  numbered  about  fifty 
thousand  soldiers,  rank  and  file,  and  had  French  muskets,  French 
cannon,  French  medicines,  French  ammunition  and  French  gold. 
Matamoras,  Mexico,  was  a  port  the  Government  could  not  or  did 
not  blockade,  and  from  one  side  of  the  river  there  came  to  it  all 
manner  of  supplies,  and  from  the  other  side  all  kinds  and  grades  of 
cotton.  This  dethroned  king  had  transferred  its  empire  from  the 
Carolinas  to  the  Gulf,  from  the  Tombigbee  to  the  Rio  Grande.  It 
was  a  fugitive  king,  however,  with  a  broken  sceptre  and  a  mere- 
tricious crown.  Afterward  it  was  guillotined. 


234  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Gen.  E.  Kirby  Smith  was  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  this 
department,  who  had  under  him  as  lieutenants,  Generals  John  B. 
Magruder  and  Simon  B.  Buckner.  Smith  was  a  soldier  turned 
exhorter.  It  is  not  known  that  he  preached;  he  prayed,  however, 
and  his  prayers,  like  the  prayers  of  the  wicked,  availed  nothing. 
Other  generals  in  other  parts  of  the  army  prayed,  too,  notably 
Stonewall  Jackson,  but  between  the  two  there  was  this  difference : 
The  first  trusted  to  his  prayers  alone;  the  last  to  his  prayers  and 
his  battalions.  Faith  is  a  fine  thing  in  the  parlor,  but  it  never  yet 
put  grape-shot  in  an  empty  caisson,  and  pontoon  bridges  over  a 
fullfed  river. 

As  I  have  said,  while  the  last  act  in  the  terrible  drama  was  being 
performed  east  of  the  Mississippi  river,  all  west  of  the  Mississippi 
was  asleep.  Lee's  surrender  at  Appomattox  Court  House  awoke 
them.  Months,  however,  before  the  last  march  Price  had  made  into 
Missouri,  Shelby  had  an  interview  with  Smith.  They  talked  of 
many  things,  but  chiefly  of  the  war.  Said  Smith: 

"  What  would  you  do  in  this  emergency,  Shelby?" 

"  I  would,"  was  the  quiet  reply,  "  march  every  single  soldier  of 
my  command  into  Missouri — infantry,  artillery,  cavalry,  all;  I  would 
fight  there  and  stay  there.  Do  not  deceive  yourself.  Lee  is  over- 
powered; Johnston  is  giving  up  county  after  county  full  of  our  corn 
and  wheat  fields;  Atlanta  is  in  danger,  and  Atlanta  furnishes  the 
powder;  the  end  approaches;  a  supreme  effort  is  necessary;  the  eyes 
of  the  East  are  upon  the  West,  and  with  fifty  thousand  soldiers  such 
as  yours  you  can  seize  St.  Louis,  hold  it,  fortify  it,  and  crossover 
into  Illinois.  It  would  be  a  drversion,  expanding  into  a  campaign — 
a  blow  that  had  destiny  in  it." 

Smith  listened,  smiled,  felt  a  momentary  enthusiasm,  ended  the 
interview,  and,  later,  sent  eight  thousand  cavalry  under  a  leader 
who  marched  twelve  miles  a  day  and  had  a  wagon  train  as  long  as 
the  tail  of  Plantamour's  comet. 

With  the  news  of  Lee's  surrender  there  came  a  great  paralysis. 
What  had  before  been  only  indifference  was  now  death.  The  army 
was  scattered  throughout  Texas,  Arkansas  and  Louisiana,  but  in  the 
presence  of  such  a  calamity  it  concentrated  as  if  by  intuition.  Men 
have  this  feeling  in  common  with  animals,  that  imminent  danger 
brings  the  first  into  masses,  the  last  into  herds.  Buffalo  fight  in  a 
circle,  soldiers  form  square.  Smith  came  up  from  Shreveport, 
Louisiana,  to  Marshall,  Texas.  Shelby  went  from  Fulton,  Arkan- 
sas, to  the  same  place.  Hither  came  also  other  generals  of  note, 
such  as  Hawthorne,  Buckner,  Preston  and  Walker.  Magruder 
tarried  at  Galveston,  watching  with  quiet  eyes  a  Federal  fleet  beating 
in  from  the  Gulf.  In  addition  to  this  fleet  there  were  also  transports 
blue  with  uniforms  and  black  with  soldiers.  A  wave  of  negro  troops 
was  about  to  inundate  the  department, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  235 

Some  little  reaction  had  begun  to  be  manifested  since  the  news 
of  Appomattox.  The  soldiers,  breaking  away  from  the  iron  bands 
of  a  rigid  discipline,  had  held  meetings  pleading  against  surrender. 
They  knew  Jefferson  Davis  was  a  fugitive,  westward  bound,  and 
they  knew  Texas  was  filled  to  overflowing  with  all  kinds  of  supplies 
and  war  munitions.  In  their  simple  hero  faith  they  believed  that 
the  struggle  could  still  be  maintained.  Thomas  C.  Reynolds  was 
Governor  of  ilissouri,  and  a  truer  and  braver  one  never  followed 
the  funeral  of  a  dead  nation  his  commonwealth  had  revered  and 
respected. 

This  Marshall  conference  had  a  two-fold  object :  first  to  ascer- 
tain the  imminence  of  the  danger,  and,  second  to  provide  against 
it.  Strange  things  were  done  there.  The  old  heads  came  to  the 
young  one;  the  infantry  yielded  its  precedence  to  the  cavalry; 
The  major-general  asked  the  advice  of  the  brigadier.  There  was 
no  rank  beyond  that  of  daring  and  genius.  A  meeting  was  held, 
at  which  all  were  present  except  General  Smith.  The  night  was  a 
Southern  one,  full  of  balm,  starlight  and  flower  odor.  The  bronzed 
men  were  gathered  quietly  and  sat  awhile,  as  Indians  do  who  wish 
to  smoke  and  go  upon  the  war-path.  The  most  chivalrous  scalp- 
lock  that  night  was  worn  by  Buckner.  He  seemed  a  real  Red  Jacket 
in  his  war-paint  and  feathers.  Alas  !  why  was  his  tomahawk  dug 
up  at  all  ?  Before  the  ashes  were  cold  about  the  embers  of  the 
council-fire,  it  was  buried. 

Shelby  was  called  on  to  speak  first,  and  if  his  speech  aston- 
ished his  audience,  they  made  no  sign  : 

"  The  army  has  no  confidence  in  General  Smith,"  he  said,  slowly 
and  deliberately,  "  and  for  the  movements  proposed  there  must  be 
chosen  a  leader  whom  they  adore.  We  should  concentrate  every- 
thing upon  the  Brazos  river.  We  must  fight  more  and  make  fewer 
speeches.  Fugitives  from  Lee  and  Johnson  will  join  us  by  thou- 
sands. Mr.  Davis  is  on  his  way  here ;  he  alone  has  the  right  to  treat 
for  surrender.  Our  intercouse  with  the  French  is  perfect,  and  fifty 
thousand  men  with  arms  in  their  hands  have  overthrown,  ere  now, 
a  dynasty,  and  established  a  kingdom.  Every  step  to  the  Rio 
Grande  must  be  fought  over,  and  when  the  last  blow  has  been  struck 
that  can  be  struck,  we  will  march  into  Mexico  and  re-instate  Juarez 
or  espouse  Maximilian.  General  Preston  should  go  at  once  to  Mar- 
shal Bazaine,  and  learn  from  him  whether  it  is  peace  or  war.  Sur- 
render is  a  word  neither  myself  nor  my  division  understand." 

This  bold  speech  had  its  effect. 

"  Who  will  lead  us?  "  the  listeners  demanded. 

"Who  else  but  Buckner,"  answered  Shelby.  "He  has  rank, 
reputation,  the  confidence  of  the  army,  ambition,  is  a  soldier  of 
fortune,  and  will  take  his  chances  like  the  rest  of  us.  Which  one 
of  us  can  read  the  future  and  tell  the  kind  of  an  empire  our  swords 
may  carve  out?" 


236  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Buckner  assented  to  the  plan,  so  did  Hawthorne,  Walker,  Pres- 
ton and  Reynolds.  The  compact  was  sealed  with  soldierly  alacrity, 
each  general  answering  for  his  command.  But  who  was  to  inform 
General  Smith  of  this  sudden  resolution — this  semi-mutiny  in  the 
very  whirl  of  the  vortex? 

Again  it  was  Shelby,  the  daring  and  impetuous. 

"Since  there  is  some  sorrow  about  this  thing,  gentlemen," he 
said,  "  and  since  men  who  mean  business  must  have  boldness,  I  will 
ask  the  honor  of  presenting  this  ultimatum  to  General  Smith.  It  is 
some  good  leagues  to  the  Brazos,  and  we  must  needs  make  haste. 
I  shall  march  to-morrow  to  the  nearest  enemy  and  attack  him. 
Have  no  fear.  If  I  do  not  overthrow  him  I  will  keep  him  long 
enough  at  bay  to  give  time  for  the  movement  southward." 

Immediately  after  the  separation,  General  Shelby  called  upon 
General  Smith.  There  were  scant  words  between  them. 

"The  army  has  lost  confidence  in  you,  General  Smith." 
'I  know  it." 

"  They  do  not  wish  to  surrender." 

"  Nor  do  I.    What  would  the  army  have  ?"  / 

"  Your  withdrawal  as  its  direct  commander,  the  appointment  of 
General  Buckner  as  its  chief,  its  concentration  upon  the  Brazos 
river,  and  war  to  the  knife,  General  Smith." 

The  astonished  man  rested  his  head  upon  his  hands  in  mute  sur- 
prise. A  shadow  of  pain  passed  rapidly  over  his  face,  and  he  gazed 
out  through  the  night  as  one  who  was  seeking  a  star  or  beacon  for 
guidance.  Then  he  arose  as  if  in  pain  and  came  some  steps  nearer 
the  young  conspirator,  whose  cold,  calm  eyes  had  never  wavered 
through  it  all. 

"  What  do  you  advise,  General  Shelby?" 

"  Instant  acquiescence." 

The  order  was  written,  the  command  of  the  army  was  given  to 
Buckner,  General  Smith  returned  to  Shreveport,  each  officer  galloped 
off  to  his  troops,  and  the  first  act  in  the  revolution  had  been  finished. 
The  next  was  played  before  a  different  audience  and  in  another 
theater. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

GEN.  SIMON  BOLIVAR  BUCKNER  was  a  soldier  handsome  enough 
to  have  been  Murat.  His  uniform  was  resplendent.  Silver  stars 
glittered  upon  his  coat,  his  gold  lace  shone  as  if  it  had  been  washed 
by  the  dew  and  wiped  with  the  sunshine,  his  sword  was  equaled  only 
in  brightness  by  the  brightness  of  its  scabbard,  and  when  upon  the 
streets  women  turned  to  look  at  him,  saying,  "  That  is  a  hero  with  a 
form  like  a  war-god."  General  Buckner  also  wrote  poetry.  Some 
of  his  sonnets  were  set  to  music  in  scanty  Confederate  fashion,  and 
when  the  red  June  roses  were  all  ablow  and  the  night  at  peace- 
with  bloom  and  blossom,  they  would  float  out  from  open  case- 
ments as  the  songs  of  minstrel  or  troubadour.  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
was  also  a  poet  who  saved  the  English  army  at  Gravelines,  and 
though  mortally  wounded  and  dying  of  thirst,  he  bade  his  esquire 
give  to  a  suffering  comrade  the  water  brought  to  cool  his  own 
parched  lips .  From  all  of  which  it  was  argued  that  the  march  to 
the  Brazos  would  be  but  as  the  calm  before  the  hurricane — that  in  the 
crisis  the  American  poet  would  have  devotion  equal  to  the  English 
poet.  From  the  Marshall  conference  to  the  present  time,  however, 
the  sky  has  been  without  a  war  cloud,  the  lazy  cattle  have  multiplied 
by  all  the  water-courses,  and  from  pink  to  white  the  cotton  has 
bloomed  and  blown  and  been  harvested. 

Before  Shelby  reached  his  division,  away  up  on  the  prairies  about 
Kaufman,  news  came  that  Smith  had  resumed  command  of  the 
army,  and  that  a  flag-of-truce  boat  was  ascending  Red  river  to 
Shreveport.  This  meant  surrender.  Men  whose  rendezvous  has 
been  agreed  upon,  and  whose  campaigns  have  been  marked  out,  had 
no  business  with  flags  of  truce.  By  the  end  of  the  next  day's  march 
Smith's  order  of  surrender  came.  It  was  very  brief  and  very  com- 
prehensive. The  soldiers  were  to  be  concentrated  at .  Shreveport, 
were  to  surrender  their  arms  and  munitions  of  war,  were  to  take 
paroles  and  transportation  wherever  the  good  Federal  deity  in  com- 
mand happened  to  think  appropriate. 

What  of  Buckner  with  his  solemn  promises,  his  recently  con- 
ferred authority,  his  elegant  new  uniform,  his  burnished  sword  with 
its  burnished  scabbard,  his  sweet  little  sonnets,  luscious  as  straw- 
berries, his  swart,  soldierly  face,  handsome  enough  again  for  Murat? 
Thinking  of  his  Chicago  property,  and  contemplating  the  mournful 
fact  of  having  been  chosen  to  surrender  the  first  and  the  last  army 
of  the  Confederacy. 

237 


238  l  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

Smith's  heart  failed  him  when  the  crisis  came.  Buckner's  heart 
was  never  fired  at  all.  All  their  hearts  failed  them  except  the 
Missouri  Governor's  and  the  Missouri  General's,  and  so  the  Brazos 
ran  on  to  the  sea  without  having  watered  a  cavalry  steed  or  reflected 
the  gleam  of  a  burnished  bayonet.  In  the  meantime,  however, 
Preston  was  well  on  his  way  to  Mexico.  Later,  it  will  be  seen  how 
Bazaine  received  him,  and  what  manner  of  a  conversation  he  had 
with  the  Emperor  Maximilian  touching  Shelby's  scheme  at  the  Mar- 
shall conference. 

Two  plans  presented  themselves  to  Shelby  the  instant  the  news 
came  of  Smith's  surrender.  The  first  was  to  throw  his  division  upon 
Shreveport  by  forced  marches,  seize  the  government,  appeal  to  the 
army,  and  then  carry  out  the  original  order  of  concentration.  The 
second  was  to  make  all  surrender  impossible  by  attacking  the 
Federal  forces,  wherever  and  whenever  he  could  find  them.  To 
resolve  with  him  was  to  execute.  He  wrote  a  proclamation  destined 
for  the  soldiers,  and  for  want  of  better  material  had  it  printed  upon 
wall  paper.  It  was  a  variegated  thing,  all  blue  and  black  and  red, 
and  unique  as  a  circus  advertisement. 

"Soldiers,  you  have  been  betrayed.  The  generals  whom  you 
trusted  have  refused  to  lead  you.  Let  us  begin  the  battle  again  by 
a  revolution.  Lift  up  the  flag  that  has  been  cast  down  dishonored. 
Unsheath  the  sword  that  it  may  remain  unsullied  and  victorious. 
If  you  desire  it,  I  will  lead  ;  if  you  demand  it,  I  will  follow.  We 
are  the  army  and  the  cause.  To  talk  of  surrender  is  to  be  a  traitor. 
Let  us  seize  the  traitors  and  attack  the  enemy.  Forward,  for  the 
South  and  Liberty!" 

Man  proposes  and  God  disposes.-  A  rain  came  out  of  the  sky 
that  was  an  inundation'even  for  Texas.  All  the  bridges  in  the  West 
were  swept  away  in  a  night.  The  swamps  that  had  been  dry  land 
rose  against  the  saddle  girths.  There  were  no  roads,  nor  any  spot 
of  earth  for  miles  and  miles  dry  enough  for  a  bivouac.  Sleepless 
and  undismayed;  the  brown-bearded,  bronzed  Missourian  toiled  ony 
his  restless  eyes  fixed  on  Shreveport.  There  the  drama  was  being 
enacted  he  had  struggled  like  a  giant  to  prevent ;  there  division  after 
division  marched  in,  stacked  their  arms,  took  their  paroles,  and 
were  disbanded.  When,  by  superhuman  exertions,  his  command 
had  forced  itself  through  from  Kaufman  to  Corsicana,  the  fugitives 
began  to  arrive.  Smith  had  again  surrendered  to  Buckner,  and 
Buckner  in  turn  had  surrendered  to  the  United  States.  It  was  useless 
to  go  forward.  If  you  attack  the  Federals,  they  pleaded,  you  will 
imperil  our  unarmed  soldiers.  It  was  not  their  fault.  Do  not  hold 
them  responsible  for  the  sins  of  their  officers.  They  were  faithful 
to  the  last,  and  even  in  their  betrayal  they  were  true  to  their  colors. 

Against  such  appeals  there  was  no  answer.  The  hour  for  a  coup 
d'etat  had  passed,  and  from  a  revolutionist  Shelby  was  about  to 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  339 

become  an  exile.  Even  in  the  bitterness  of  his  overthrow  he  was 
grand.  He  had  been  talking  to  uniformed  things,  full  of  glitter 
and  varnish  and  gold  lace  and  measured  intonations  of  speech  that 
sounded  like  the  talk  stately  heroes  have,  but  they  were  all  clay  and 
carpet-knights.  Smith  faltered,  Buckner  faltered,  other  generals, 
not  so  gay  and  gaudy,  faltered,  they  all  faltered.  If  war  had  been 
a  woman,  winning  as  Cleopatra,  with  kingdoms  for  caresses,  the 
lips  that  sang  sonnets  would  never  have  kissed  her.  After  the 
smoke  cleared  away  only  Shelby  and  Reynolds  stood  still  in  the 
desert — the  past  a  Dead  Sea  behind  them,  the  future,  what — the 
dark? 

One  more  duty  remained  to  be  done.  The  sun  shone,  the  waters 
had  subsided,  the  grasses  were  green  and  undulating,  and  Shelby's 
Missouri  Cavalry  Division  came  forth  from  its  bivouac  for  the  last 
time.  A  call  ran  down  its  ranks  for  volunteers  for  Mexico.  One 
thousand  bronzed  soldiers  rode  fair  to  the  front,  over  them  the  old 
barred  banner,  worn  now,  and  torn,  and  well  nigh  abandoned. 
Two  and  two  they  ranged  themselves  behind  their  leader,  waiting. 

The  good-byes  and  the  partings  followed.  There  is  no  need  to 
record  them  here.  Peace  and  war  have  no  road  in  common.  Along 
the  pathway  of  one  there  are  roses  and  thorns;  along  the  pathway 
of  the  other  there  are  many  thorns,  with  a  sprig  or  two  of  laurel 
when  all  is  done.  Shelby  chose  the  last  and  marched  away  with 
his  one  thousand  men  behind  him.  That  night  he  camped  over 
beyond  Corsicana,  for  some  certain  preparations  had  to  be  made, 
and  some  valuable  war  munitions  had  to  be  gathered  in. 

Texas  was  a  vast  arsenal.  Magnificent  batteries  of  French  artil- 
lery stood  abandoned  upon  the  prairies.  Those  who  surrendered 
them  took  the  horses  but  left  the  guns.  Imported  muskets  were  in 
all  the  towns,  and  to  fixed  ammunition  there  was  no  limit.  Ten 
beautiful  Napoleon  guns  were  brought  into  camp  and  appropriated. 
Each  gun  had  six  magnificent  horses  and  six  hundred  rounds  of  shell 
and  canister.  Those  who  were  about  to  encounter  the  unknown 
began  by  preparing  for  giants.  A  complete  organization  was  next 
affected.  An  election  was  held  in  due  and  formal  manner,  and 
Shelby  was  chosen  colonel  with  a  shout.  He  had  received  every 
vote  in  the  regiment  except  his  own.  Misfortunes  at  least  make 
men  unanimous.  The  election  of  the  companies  came  next.  Some 
who  had  been  majors  came  down  to  corporals,  and  more  who  had 
been  lieutenants  went  up  to  maj  ors.  Rank  had  only  this  rivalry  there, 
the  rivalry  of  self-sacrifice.  From  the  colonel  to  the  rearmost  men 
in  the  rearmost  file  it  was  a  forest  of  Sharp's  carbines.  Each  car- 
bine had,  in  addition  to  the  forty  rounds  the  soldiers  carried,  three 
hundred  rounds  more  in  the  wagon  train.  Four  Colt's  pistols  each, 
dragoon  size,  and  a  heavy  regulation  sabre, 'completed  the  equipment. 
For  the  revolvers  there  were  ten  thousand  rounds  apiece.  Nor  was 


240  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

this  all.  In  the  wagons  there  were  powder,  lead,  bullet  molds, 
and  six  thousand  elegant  new  Enfields  just  landed  from  England, 
with  the  brand  of  the  Queen's  arms  still  upon  them.  Recruits  were 
expected,  and  nothing  pleases  a  recruit  so  well  as  a  bright  new 
musket,  good  for  a  thousand  yards. 

For  all  these  heavy  war  materials  much  transportation  was  neces- 
sary. It  could  be  had  for  the  asking.  General  Smith's  dissolving 
army,  under  the  terms  of  the  surrender,  was  to  give  up  everything. 
And  so  they  did,  right  willingly.  Shelby  took  it  back  again,  or  at 
least  what  was  needed.  The  march  would  be  long,  and,  he  meant 
to  make  it  honorable,  and  therefore,  in  addition  to  the  horses,  the 
mules,  the  cannon,  the  wagons,  the  fixed  ammunition,  and  the 
muskets,  Shelby  took  flour  and  bacon.  The  quantities  were  limited 
entirely  by  the  anticipated  demand,  and  for  the  first  time  in  its  his- 
tory the  Confederacy  was  lavish  of  its  commissary  stores. 

When  all  these  things  were  done  and  well  done — these  prepara- 
tions, these  tearings  down  and  buildings  up,  these  re-organizations 
and  re-habilitations,  this  last  supreme  restoration  of  the  equilibrium 
of  rank  and  position,  a  council  of  war  was  called.  The  old  ardor 
of  battle  was  not  yet  subdued  in  the  breast  of  the  leader.  Playfully 
calling  his  old  soldiers  young  recruits,  he  wanted  as  a  kind  of  puri- 
fying process,  to  carry  them  into  battle. 

The  council  fire  was  no  larger  than  an  Indian's,  and  around  it 
were  grouped  Elliot,  Gordon,  Slayback,  Williams,  Collins,  Lang- 
horne,  Crisp,  Jackman,  Blackwell  and  a  host  of  others  who  had 
discussed  weighty  questions  before  upon  eve  of  battle — questions 
that  had  men's  lives  in  them  as  thick  as  sentences  in  a  school 
book. 

"Before  we  march  southward,"  said  Shelby,  "I  thought  we 
might  try  the  range  of  our  new  Napoleons." 

No  answer,  save  that  quiet  look  one  soldier  gives  to  another 
when  the  firing  begins  on  the  skirmish  line. 

"  There  is  a  great  gathering  of  Federals  at  Shreveport,  and  a 
good  blow  in  that  direction  might  clear  up  the  military  horizon 
amazingly." 

No  answer  yet.    They  all  knew  what  was  coming,  however. 

"We  might  find  hands,  too,"  and  here  his  voice  was  wistful  and 
pleading;  "  we  might  find  hands  for  our  six  thousand  bright  new 
Enfields.  What  do  you  say,  comrades?" 

They  consulted  some  little  time  together  and  then  took  a  vote 
upon  the  proposition  whether,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
large  number  of  unarmed  Confederates  at  Shreveport  awaiting 
transportation,  it  would  be  better  to  attack  or  not  to  attack.  It  was 
decided  against  the  proposition,  and  without  further  discussion 
the  enterprise  was  abandoned.  These  last  days  of  the  division  were 
its  best.  For  a  week  it  remained  preparing  for  the  long  and  peril- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  241 

ous  march,  a  week  full  of  the  last  generous  rites  brave  men  could 
pay  to  a  dead  cause.  Some  returning  and  disbanded  soldiers  were 
tempted  at  times  to  levy  contributions  upon  the  country  through 
which  they  passed,  and  at  times  to  do  seme  cowardly  work  under 
cover  of  darkness  and  drink.  Shelby's  stern  orders  arrested  them 
in  the  act,  and  his  swift  punishment  left  a  shield  over  the  neighbor- 
hood that  needed  only  its  shadow  to  ensure  safety.  The  women 
blessed  him  for  his  many  good  deeds  done  in  those  last  dark  days, 
deeds  that  shine  out  yet  from  the  black  wreck  of  things,  a  star. 

This  kind  of  occupation  ended  at  last,  however,  and  the  column 
marched  away  southward.  One  man^alone  knew  French,  and  they 
were  going  to  a  land  filled  full  of  Frenchmen.  One  man  alone  knew 
Spanish,  and  they  were  going  to  the  land  of  the  Spaniards.  The 
first  only  knew  the  French  of  the  schools  which  was  no  French,  arid 
the  last  had  been  bitten  by  a  tawny  tarantula  of  a  senorita  some- 
where up  in  Sonora,  and  was  worthless  and  valueless  when  most 
needed  in  the  ranks  that  had  guarded  and  protected  him. 

Before  reaching  Austin  a  terrible  tragedy  was  enacted — one  of 
those  sudden  and  bloody  things  so  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the 
desperate  nature  of  the  men  who  witnessed  it.  Two  officers — ore  a 
captain  and  one  a  lieutenant — quarreled  about  a  woman,  a  fair  young 
thing  enough,  lissome  and  light  of  love.  She  was  the  Captain's  by 
right  of  discovery,  the  Lieutenant's  by  right  of  conquest.  At  the 
night  encampment  she  abandoned  the  old  love  for  the  new,  and 
in  the  struggle  for  possession  the  Captain  struck  the  Lieutenant  fair 
in  the  face. 

"  You  have  done  a  serious  thing,"  some  comrade  said  to  him. 

"  It  will  be  more  serious  in  the  morning,"  was  the  quiet  reply. 

"  But  you  are  in  the  wrong  and  you  should  apologize." 

He  tapped  the  handle  of  his  revolver  significantly,  and  made 
answer: 

"This must  finish  what  the  blow  has  commenced.  A  woman 
worth  kissing  is  worth  fighting  for." 

I  do  not  mention  names.  There  are  those  to-day  living  in  Marion 
County  whose  sleep  in  eternity  will  be  lighter  and  sweeter  if  they 
are  left  in  ignorance  of  how  one  fair-haired  boy  died  who  went  forth 
to  fight  the  battles  of  the  South  and  found  a  grave  when  her  battles 
were  ended. 

The  Lieutenant  challenged  the  Captain,  but  the  question  of  its 
acceptance  was  decided  even  before  the  challenge  was  received. 
These  were  the  terms:  At  daylight  the  principals  were  to  meet  one 
mile  from  the  camp  upon  the  prairie,  armed  each  with  a  revolver 
and  a  saber.  They  were  to  be  mounted  and  stationed  twenty  paces 
apart,  back  to  back.  At  the  word  they  were  to  wheel  and  fire, 
advancing  if  they  chose  or  remaining  stationary  if  they  chose.  In 
no  event  were  they  to  pass  beyond  a  line  two  hundred  yards  in  the 


242  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO', 

rear  of  each  position.     This  space  was  accorded  as  that  in  which 
the  combatants  might  rein  up  and  return  again  to  the  attack. 

So  secret  were  the  preparations,  and  so  sacred  the  honor  of  the 
two  men,  that,  although  the  difficulty  was  known  to  300  soldiers, 
not  one  of  them  informed  Shelby.  He  would  have  instantly 
arrested  the  principals,  and  forced  a  compromise,  as  he  had  done 
once  before  under  circumstances  as  urgent  but  in  no  wa}'s  similar. 

It  was  a  beautiful  morning,  all  balm  and  bloom  and  verdure. 
There  was  not  wind  enough  to  shake  the  sparkling  dew-drops 
from  the  grass,  not  wind  enough  to  lift  breast  high  the  heavy  odor 
of  the  flowers.  The  face  of  the  sky  was  placid  and  benignant. 
Some  red  like  a  blush  shone  in  the  east,  and  some  clouds,  airy  and 
gossamer,  floated  away  to  the  west.  Some  birds  sang,  too,  Lushed 
and  far  apart.  Two  and  two,  and  in  groups,  men  stole  away  from 
the  camp  and  ranged  themselves  on  either  flank.  A  few  rude  jokes 
were  heard,  but  they  died  out  quickly  as  the  combatants  rode  up  to 
the  dead  line.  Both  were  calm  and  cool,  and  on  the  Captain's  face 
there  was  a  half  smile.  Poor  fellow,  there  was  already  the  scars 
of  three  honorable  wounds  upon  his  body;  the  fourth  would  be 
his  death  wound. 

They  were  placed,  and  sat  their  horses  like  men  who  are  about 
to  charge.  Each  head  was  turned  a  little  to  one  side,  the  feet  rested 
lightly  in  the  stirrups, the  left  hands  grasped  the  reins  well  gathered 
up,  the  right  hands  held  the  deadly  pistols,  loaded  fresh  an  hour 
before. 

"R3ady — wjisslf  "  The  trained  steeds  turned  upon  a  pivot  as 
one  steed . 

"Fire!" 

The  Lieutenant  never  movrd  from  his  tracks.  The  Captain 
dashed  down  upon  him  at  a  full  gallop,  firing  as  he  came  on.  Three 
chambers  were  emptied,  and  three  bullets  sped  away  over  the  prairie, 
harmless.  Before  the  fourth  fire  was  given  the  Captain  was  abreast 
of  the  Lieutenant,  and  aiming  at  him  at  deadly  range.  Too  late! 
The  Lieutenant  threw  out  his  pistol  until  the  muzzle  almost  touched 
the  Captain's  hair,  and  fired.  The  mad  horse  dashed  away  rider- 
less, the  Captain's  life  blood  upon  his  trappings  and  his  glossy  hide. 
There  was  a  face  in  the  grass,  a  widowed  woman  in  Missouri,  and 
a  soul  somewhere  in  the  white  hush  and  waste  of  eternity.  A  great 
dragoon  ball  had  gone  directly  through  his  brain,  and  the  Captain 
was  dead  before  he  touched  the  ground.  They  buried  him  before 
thesunrose,  before  the  dew  was  dried  upon  the  grassthatgrew  upon 
his  premature  and  bloody  grave.  There  was  no  epitaph,  yet  this 
might  have  been  lifted  there,  ere  the  grim  soldiers  marched  away 
again  to  the  South : 

"  Ah,  soldiet',  t  >  your  honored  rest, 

Your  truth  and  valor  bearing; 
The  bravest  aro  the  tenderest, 
The  loving  are  the  daring." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

AT  Houston,  Texas,  there  was  a  vast  depot  of  supplies  filled  with 
all  kinds  of  quartermaster  and  commissary  stores.  Shelby  desired 
that  the  women  and  children  of  true  soldiers  should  have  such  of 
these  as  would  be  useful  or  beneficial,  and  so  issued  his  orders. 
These  were  disputed  by  a  thousand  or  so  refugees  or  renegades 
whose  heads  were  beginning  to  be  lifted  up  everywhere  as  soon  as 
the  last  mutterings  of  the  war  storm  were  heard  in  the  distance. 

He  called  to  him  two  captains — James  Meadow  and  James 
Wood — two  men  known  of  old  as  soldiers  fit  for  any  strife.  The 
first  is  a  farmer  now  in  Jackson,  the  last  a  farmer  in  Pettis,  both 
young,  brave,  worthy  of  all  good  luck  or  fortune. 

They  came  speedily;  they  saluted  and  waited  for  orders. 

Shelby  said: 

"  Take  one  hundred  men  and  march  quickly  to  Houston.  Gal- 
lop oftener  than  you  trot.  Proclaim  to  the  Confederate  women  that 
on  a  certain  day  you  will  distribute  to  them  whatever  of  cloth,  flour, 
bacon,  medicines,  clothing  or  other  supplies  they  may  need  or  that 
are  in  store.  Hold  the  town  until  that  day,  and  then  obey  my 
orders  to  the  letter." 

"  But  if  we  are  attacked? " 

"  Don't  wait  for  that.    Attack  first." 

"  And  fire  ball  cartridges?  " 

"  And  fire  nothing  else.     Bullets  first,  speeches  afterward." 

They  galloped  away  to  Houston.  Two  thousand  greedy  and 
clamorous  ruffians  were  besieging  the  warehouses.  They  had  not 
fought  for  Texas  and  not  one  dollar's  worth  of  Texas  property 
should  they  have.  Wood  and  Meadow  drew  up  in  front  of  them. 

"  Disperse  !"  they  ordered. 

Wild,  vicious  eyes  glared  out  upon  them  from  the  mass,  red  and 
swollen  by  drink.  They  had  rifled  an  arsenal,  too,  and  all  had 
muskets  and  cartridges. 

"  After  we  have  seen  what's  inside  this  building,  and  taken 
what's  best  for  us  to  take,"  the  leader  answered,  "we  will  disperse. 
The  war's  over  young  fellows,  and  the  strongest  party  takes  the 
plunder.  Do  you  understand  our  logic?  " 

"  Perfectly,"  replied  Wood,  as  cool  as  a  grenadier,  "  and  it's 
bad  logic  if  you  were  a  Confederate,  good  logic  if  you  are  a 
thief.  Let  me  talk  a  little.  We  are  Missourians,  we  are  leaving 
Texas,  we  have  no  homes,  but  we  have  our  orders  and  our  honor. 

243 


244  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

Not  so  much  as  one  percussion  cap  shall  you  take  from  this  house 
until  you  bring  a  written  order  from  Jo.  Shelby,  and  one  of  Shelby's 
men  along  with  you  to  prove  that  you  did  not  forge  that  order.  Do 
you  understand  my  logic  ?  " 

They  understood  him  well,  and  they  understood  better  the  one 
hundred  stern  soldiers,  drawn  up  ten  paces  to  the  rear,  with  eyes  to 
the  front  and  revolvers  drawn.  Shrill  voices  from  the  outside  of 
the  crowd  urged  those  nearest  to  the  detachment  to  fire,  but  no 
weapon  was  presented.  Such  was  the  terror  of  Shelby's  name,  and 
such  the  reputation  of  his  men  for  prowess,  that  not  a  robber  stirred. 
By  and  by,  from  the  rear,  they  began  to  drop  away  one  by  one,  then 
in  squads  of  tens  and  twenties,  until,  before  an  hour,  the  streets  of 
Houston  were  as  quiet  and  as  peaceful  as  the  cattle  upon  the  prairies. 
These  two  determined  young  officers  obeyed  their  instructions  and 
rejoined  their  General. 

Similar  scenes  were  enacted  at  Tyler  and  Waxahatchie.  At  the 
first  of  these  places  was  an  arsenal  guarded  by  Colonel  Blackwell, 
and  a  small  detachment  consisting  of  squads  under  Captain  Ward, 
Cordell,  Rudd,  Kirtley  and  Neale.  They  were  surrounded  in  the 
night  time  by  a  furious  crowd  of  mountain  plunderers  and  shirking 
conscripts — men  who  had  dodged  both  armies  or  deserted  both. 
They  wanted  guns  to  begin  the  war  on  their  neighbors  after  the 
real  war  was  over. 

"  You  can't  have  any,"  said  Blackwell. 

"  We  will  take  them." 

"  Come  and  do  it.  These  are  Shelby's  soldiers,  and  they  don't 
know  what  being  taken  means.  Pray  teach  it  to  us." 

This  irony  was  had  in  the  darkness,  be  it  remembered,  and  in  the 
midst  of  seven  hundred  desperate  deer-hunters  and  marauders  who 
had  baffled  all  the  efforts  of  the  regular  authorities  to  capture  them. 
Blackwell's  detachment  numbered  thirty  eight.  And  now  a  deed 
was  done  that  terrified  the  boldest  in  all  that  band  grouped  together 
in  the  darkness,  and  waiting  to  spring  upon  the  little  handful  of 
devoted  soldiers,  true  to  that  country  which  no  longer  had  either 
thanks  or  praise  to  bestow.  James  Kirtley,  James  Rudd,  Samuel 
Downing  and  Albert  Jeffries  seized  each  a  keg  of  powder  and 
advanced  in  front  of  the  arsenal  some  fifty  paces,  leaving  behind  them 
from  the  entrance  a  dark  and  ominous  train.  "Where  the  halt  was 
had  a  little  heap  of  powder  was  placed  upon  the  ground,  and  upon 
each  heap  was  placed  a  keg,  the  hole  downward,  or  connected  with 
the  heap  upon  the  ground.  The  mass  of  marauders  surged  back  as 
if  the  earth  had  opened  at  their  very  feet. 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  they  yelled. 

"  To  blow  you  into  hell,"  was  Kirtley's  quiet  reply,  "  i^you'r 
within  range  while  we  are  eating  our  supper.  We  have  ridd( 
thirty  miles,  we  have  good  consciences,  and  therefore  we  are  hungry. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  245 

Good  night!"  and  the  reckless  soldiers  went  back  singing.  One 
spark  would  have  half  demolished  the  town.  A  great  awe  fell  upon 
the  clamoring  hundreds,  and  they  precipitately  fled  from  the  deadly 
spot,  not  a  skulker  among  them  remaining  until  the  daylight. 

At  Waxahatchie  it  was  worse.  Here  Maurice  Langhorne  kept 
guard.  Langhorne  was  a  Methodist  turned  soldier.  He  publishes 
a  paper  now  in  Independence,  harder  work,  perhaps,  than  soldier- 
ing. Far  be  it  from  the  author  to  say  that  the  young  Captain  ever 
fell  from  grace.  His  oaths  were  few  and  far  between,  and  not  the 
great  strapping  oaths  of  the  Baptists  or  the  Presbyterians.  They 
adorned  themselves  with  black  kids  and  white  neckties,  and  some- 
times they  fell  upon  their  knees.  Yet  Langhorne  was  always  ortho- 
dox. His  pistol  practice  was  superb.  During  his  whole  five  years' 
service  he  never  missed  his  man. 

He  held  Waxahatchie  with  such  soldiers  as  John  Kritzer,  Mar- 
tin Kritzer,  Jim  Crow  Childs,  Bud  Pitcher,  Cochran  and  a  dozen 
others.  He  was  surrounded  by  a  furious  mob  who  clamored  for 
admittance  into  the  building  where  the  stores  were. 

"  Go  away,"  said  Langhorne,  mildly.  His  voice  was  soft  enough 
for  a  preacher's,  his  looks  bad  enough  for  a  l-ackslider. 

They  fired  on  him  a  close,  hot  volley.     Wild  work  followed,  for 
with  such  men  how  could  it  be  otherwise?    No  matter  who  fell, 
or  the  number  of  dead  and  dying,  Langhorne  held  the  town  that 
ight,  the  day  following  and  the  next  night.     There  was  no  moie 

b.  A  deep  peace  came  to  the  neighborhood,  and  as  he  rode 
way  there  were  many  true,  brave  Confederates  who  came  to  his 
little  band  and  blessed  them  for  what  had  been  done.  In  such  guise 
did  these  last  acts  of  Shelby  array  themselves.  Scorning  all  who  in 
the  name  of  soldiers  plundered  the  soldiers,  he  left  a  record  Ixhird 
him  which,  even  to  this  day,  has  men  and  women  to  rise  up  and  call 
it  noble. 

After  Houston  and  Tyler  and  Waxahatchie  came  Austin.  The 
march  had  become  to  be  an  ovation.  Citizens  thronged  the  roads, 
bringing  with  them  refreshments  and  good  cheer.  No  soldier  could 
pay  for  any  thing.  Those  who  had  begun  by  condemning  Shelby's 
stern  treatment  of  the  mob,  ended  by  upholding  him. 

Governor  Murrah,  of  Texas,  still  remained  at  the  capital  of  his 
State.  He  had  been  dying  for  a  year.  All  those  insidious  and 
deceptive  approaches  of  consumption  were  seen  in  the  hectic  cheeks, 
the  large,  mournful  eyes,  the  tall,  bent  frame  that  quivered  as  it 
moved.  Murrah  was  a  gifted  and  brilliant  man,  but  his  heart  was 
broken.  In  his  life  there  was  the  memory  of  an  unblessed  and  an 
unhallowed  love,  too  deep  for  human  sympathy,  too  sad  and 
passionate  for  tears.  He  knew  death  was  near  to  him,  yet  he  put  on 
his  old  gray  uniform,  and  mounted  his  old,  tried  war  horse,  and  rode 
away  dying  to  Mexico.  Later,  in  Monterey,  the  red  in  his  cheeks 


246  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

had  burnt  itself  out.  The  crimson  had  turned  to  ashen  gray.  He 
was  dead  with  his  uniform  around  him. 

The  Confederate  government  had  a  sub-treasury  in  Austin,  in  the 
vaults  of  which  were  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  gold  and 
silver.  Operating  about  the  city  was  a  company  of  notorious 
guerrillas,  led  by  Captain  Rabb,  half  ranchero  and  half  freebooter. 
It  was  pleasant  pasturage  over  beyond  the  Colorado  river,  and 
thither  the  Regiment  went,  for  ithad  marched  far,  and  itwasweary. 
Loitering  late  for  wine  and  wassail,  many  soldiers  halted  in  the 
streets  and  tarried  till  the  night  came — a  misty,  cloudy,  ominous 
night,  full  of  darkness  and  dashes  of  rain. 

Suddenly  a  tremendous  battering  arose  from  the  iron  doors  of 
the  vaults  in  the  State  House  where  the  money  was  kept.  Silent 
horsemen  galloped  to  and  fro  through  the  gloom;  the  bells  of  the 
churches  were  rung  furiously;  a  home  guard  company  mustered  at 
their  armory  to  the  beat  of  the  long  role,  and  from  beyond  the 
Colorado  there  arose  on  the  night  air  the  full,  resonant  blare  of 
Shelby's  bugle  sounding  the  well-known  rallying  call.  In  some  few 
brief  moments  more  the  head  of  a  solid  column,  four  deep,  galloped 
into  the  Square,  reporting  for  duty  to  the  Mayor  of  the  city — a 
maimed  soldier  of  Lee's  army.  Ward  led  them. 

"  They  are  battering  down  the  Treasury  doors,"  said  the  Mayor. 

"  I  should  think  so,"  replied  Ward.  "  Iron  and  steel  must  soon 
give  way  before  such  blows.  What  would  you  have  ?" 

"  The  safety  of  the  treasure." 

"  Forward,  men!"  and  the  detachment  went  off  at  a  trot,  and  in 
through  the  great  gate  leading  to  the  Capitol.  It  was  surrounded. 
The  blows  continued.  Lights  shone  through  all  the  windows;  there 
were  men  inside  gorging  themselves  with  gDld.  No  questions  were 
a*ked.  A  su  idea,  pitiless  jet  of  flame  spurted  out  from  two  score 
of  Sharp's  carbines ;  there  was  the  sound  of  falling  men  on  the  echo- 
ing floor,  and  then  a  great  darkness.  From  out  the  smoke  and  gloom 
and  shivered  glass  and  scattered  eagles  they  dragged  the  victims 
forth — dying,  bleading,  dead.  One  among  the  rest,  a  great-framed, 
girmt  man,  had  a  king's  ransom  about  his  person.  He  had  taken  off 
his  mntaloons,  tied  a  string  around  each  leg  at  the  bottom  and  had 
filled  them.  An  epicure  even  in  death,  he  had  discarded  the  silver, 
These  white  heaps,  like  a  wave,  had  inundated  the  room,  more 
precious  to  fugitive  men  than  food  or  raiment.  Not  a  dollar  was 
touched,  and  a  stern  guard  took  his  post,  as  immutable  as  fate,  by 
the  silver  heaps  and  the  blood  puddles.  In  walking  his  beat  this 
blood  splashed  him  to  the  knees. 

Now.  this  money  was  money  of  the  Confederacy,  it  belonged  to 
her  soldiers, they  should  have  taken  it  and  divided  it  per  capita.  They 
did  not  do  this  because  of  this  remark.  Said  Shelby,  when  they 
appealed  to  him  to  take  it  as  a  right; 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR  247 

"I  went  into  the  war  with  clean  hands,  and  by  God's  blessing, 
I  will  go  out  of  the  war  with  clean  hands.  ' 

After  that  they  would  have  starved  before  touching  a  silver 
picayune. 

Ere  marching  the  next  morning,  however,  Murrah  came  to  Shelby 
and  insisted  that  as  his  command  was  the  last  organized  body  of 
Confederates  in  Texas,  and  that  as  they  were  on  the  eve  of  abandon- 
ing the  country,  he  should  take  this  Confederate  property  just  as  he 
had  taken  the  cannon  and  the  muskets.  The  temptation  was  strong^ 
and  the  arguments  were  strong,  but  he  never  wavered.  He  knew 
what  the  world  would  say,  and  he  dreaded  its  malice.  Not  for 
himself,  however,  but  for  the  sake  of  that  nation  he  had  loved  and 
fought  so  hard  to  establish. 

"We  are  the  last  of  the  race,"  he  said,  a  little  regretfully,  "but 
let  us  be  the  best  as  well." 

And  so  he  turned  his  back  upon  the  treasury  and  its  gold,  pen- 
niless. His  soldiers  were  ragged,  without  money,  exiles,  and  yet  at 
his  bidding  they  set  their  faces  as  iron  against  the  heaps  of  silver, 
and  the  broken  doors  of  the  treasury  vaults,  and  rode  on  into  the 
South. 

When  the  line  of  demarkation  was  so  clearly  drawn  between 
what  was  supposed,  and  what  was  intended — when,  indeed,  Shelby's 
line  of  march  was  so  straight  and  so  steadfast  as  to  no  longer  leave 
his  destination  in  doubt,  fugitives  began  to  seek  shelter  under  his 
flag  and  within  the  grim  ranks  of  his  veterans.  Ex-Governor  and 
Ex  Senator  Trusten  Polk  was  one  of  these.  He,  like  the  rest,  was 
homeless  and  penniless,  and  joined  his  fortune  to  the  fortunes  of 
those  who  had  just  left  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  specie  in 
Austin.  From  all  of  which  Trusten  Polk  might  have  argued: 

"  These  fellows  will  carry  me  through,  but  they  will  find  for 
me  no  gold  or  silver  mines." 

Somewhere  in  the  State  were  other  fugitives  struggling  to  reach 
Shelby — fugitive  generals,  governors,  congressmen,  cabinet 
officers,  men  who  imagined  that  the  whole  power  of  the  United 
States  Government  was  bent  upon  their  capture.  Smith  was  mak- 
ing his  way  to  Mexico,  so  was  Magruder,  Reynolds,  Parsons,  Stand- 
ish,  Conrow,  General  Lyon,  of  Kentucky  ;Flournoy,  Terrell,  Clark, 
and  Snead,  of  Texas;  General  John  B.  Clark,  Sr., General  Prevost, 
of  Louisiana;  Governor  Henry  W.  Allen,  Commodore  M.  F.  Maury, 
General  Bee,  General  Oscar  Watkins,  Colonel  Wm  M.  Broadwell, 
Colonel  Peter  B.  Wilks,  and  a  host  of  others  equally  determined  on 
flight  and  equally  out  at  elbows.  Of  money  they  had- scarcely  fifty 
dollars  to  the  mau.  Magruder  brought  his  superb  spirits  and  his 
soldierly  heart  for  every  fate;  Reynolds,  his  elegant  cultivation, 
and  his  cool,  indomitable  courage;  Smith,  his  useless  repinings  and 
his  rigid  West  Point  courtesy;  Allen,  his  electric  enthusiasm  and 


23  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

his  abounding  belief  in  Providence;  Maury,  his  learning  and  his 
foreign  decorations;  Clark,  his  inimitable  drollery  and  his  broad 
Southern  humor;  Prevost,  his  French  gallantry  and  wit;  Broad- 
well,  his  generosity  and  his  speculative  views  of  the  future ;  Bee, 
his  theories  of  isothermal  lines  and  cotton  planting;  and  Parsons, 
and  Standish  and  Conrow  the  shadow  of  a  great  darkness  that  was 
soon  to  envelop  them  as  in  a  cloud — the  darkness  of  bloody  and  pre- 
mature graves. 

The  command  was  within  three  days'  march  of  San  Antonio. 
As  it  approached  Mexico,  the  grass  gave  place  to  mesquite — the  wide, 
undulating  prairies  to  matted  and  impenetrable  stretches  of  chap- 
paral.  All  the  rigid  requirements  of  war  had  been  carried  out — 
the  picquet  guard,  the  camp  guard,  the  advanced  posts,  and  the 
outlying  scouts,  aimless  and  objectless,  apparently,  but  full  of 
daring,  and  cunning,  and  guile. 

Pasturage  was  scarce  this  night,  and  from  water  to  grass  was 
two  good  miles.  The  artillery  and  commissary  teams  needed  to  be 
fed,  and  so  a  strong  guard  was  sent  with  them  to  the  grazing  place. 
They  were  magnificent  animals,  all  fat  and  fine  enough  to  put  bad 
thoughts  in  the  fierce  natures  cf  the  cow-boys — an  indigenous  Texas 
growth — and  the  unruly  borderers. 

They  had  been  gone  an  hour,  and  the  sad  roll  of  the  tattoo  had 
floated  away  on  the  night  air.  A  scout — Martin  Kritzer — rode 
rapidly  up  to  Shelby  and  dismounted. 

He  was  dusty  and  tired,  and  had  ridden  far  and  fast.  As  a 
soldier,  he  was  all  iron;  as  a  scout,  all  intelligence;  as  a  sentinel, 
unacquainted  with  sleep. 

"  Well,  Martin,"  his  General  said. 

"  They  are  after  the  horses,"  was  the  sententious  reply. 

"What  horses?" 

"  Those  of  the  artillery." 

"  Why  do  they  want  them?  " 

The  cavalry  soldier  looked  at  his  General  in  surprise.  It  was 
the  first  time  in  his  life  he  had  ever  lost  confidence  in  him.  Such  a 
question  from  such  a  source  was  more  than  he  could  well  under, 
stand.  He  repeated  slowly,  a  look  of  honest  credulity  on  his 
bronzed  face: 

"Why  do  they  want  them? — well,  because  they  are  fine,  fat, 
trained  in  the  harness,  scarce  to  find,  and  worth  half  their  weight 
in  gold.  Are  these  reasons  enough? " 

Shelby  did  not  reply  He  ordered  Langhorne  to  report  to  him, 
He  came  up  as  he  always  came,  smiling. 

"Take  fifty  men,"  were  the  curt  instructions,  '  and  station 
them  a  good  half  mile  in  front  of  the  pasturing-place.  There  must 
be  no  bullets  dropping  in  among  our  stock,  and  they  must  have 
plenty  of  grass  room,  You  were  on  duty  last  njght,  I  believe," 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  349 

"  Yes,  General." 

"And  did  not  sleep?  " 

"  No,  General." 

"  Nor  will  you  sleep  to-night.  Station  the  men,  I  say,  and  then 
station  yourself  at  the  head  of  them.  You  will  hear  a  noise  in  the 
night — late  in  the  night — and  presently  a  dark  body  of  horsemen 
will  march  up,  fair  to  see  between  the  grass  and  the  sky  line.  You 
need  not  halt  them.  When  the  range  gets  good,  fire  and  charge. 
Do  you  understand?  " 

"Perfectly." 

In  an  hour  Langhorne  was  at  his  post,  silent  as  fate  and  terrible, 
couching  there  in  his  lair,  with  fifty  good  carbines  behind  him. 
About  midnight  a  low  note  like  thunder  sprang  up  from  toward 
San  Antonio.  The  keen  ear  of  the  practiced  soldier  took  in  its 
meaning,  as  a  sailor  might  the  speech  of  the  sea. 

"  Get  ready — they  are  coming." 

The  indolent  forms  lifted  themselves  up  from  the  great  shadow 
of  the  earth.  When  they  were  still  again  they  were  mounted. 

The  thunder  grew  louder.  What  had  before  been  noise  was 
now  shape  and  substance.  Seventy-eight  border  men  were  riding 
down  to  raid  the  herders. 

"Are  you  all  loaded? "  asked  Langhorne. 

"  All.     Have  been  for  four  years." 

From  the  mass  in  front  plain  figures  evolved  themselves.  Under 
the  stars  their  gun-barrels  shone. 

"  They  have  guns,"  sneered  Langhorce,  "  but  no  scouts  in  front. 
What  would  Old  Joe  say  to  that? " 

"He  would  dismount  them  and  send  them  to  the  infantry," 
laughed  John  Kritzer. 

The  leading  files  were  within  fifty  yards,  near  enough  for  a 
volley.  They  had  not  heard  this  grim  by-play,  rendered  under  the 
night  and  to  the  ears  of  an  unseen  death  crouching  in  the  prairie 
grass. 

' '  Make  ready ! "  Langhorne's  voice  had  a  gentleness  in  it,  soft  as 
a  caress.  The  Methodist  had  -turned  lover. 

Fifty  dark  muzzles  crept  out  to  the  front,  and  waited  there 
gaping. 

"Take aim!"  The  softest  things  are  said  in  whispers.  The 
Methodist  was  about  to  deliver  the  benediction. 

"Fire!" 

A  red  cleft  in  the  heart  of  the  midnight— a  murky  shroud  of  dun 
and  dark  that  smelt  of  sulphur — a  sudden  uprearing  of  staggering 
steeds  and  staggering  riders — a  wild,  pitiful  panic  of  spectres  who 
had  encountered  the  unknown — and  fifty  terrible  men  dashed  down 
to  the  charge.  Why  follow  the  deadly  work  under  the  sky  and  the 
stars.  It  was  providence  fulfilling  a  vow — fate  restoring 


250  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO. 

librium  of  justice— justice  vindicating  the  supremacy  of  its  immortal 
logic.  Those  who  came  to  rob  had  been  a  scourge  more  dreaded 
than  the  pestilence — more  insatiate  than  a  famine.  Defying  alike 
civil  and  martial  law,  they  had  preyed  alternately  upon  the  people 
and  the  soldiers.  They  were  desperadoes  and  marauders  of  the 
worst  type,  feared  and  hated  or  both.  Beyond  a  few  scattering 
shots,  fired  by  the  boldest  of  them  in  retreat,  they  made  no  fight. 
The  dead  were  not  buried.  As  the  regiment  moved  on  toward  San 
Aitoato,  thirty-nine  could  have  been  counted  lying  out  in  the  grass 
— booted  and  spurred,  and  waiting  the  Judgment  Day. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SAN  ANTONIO,  in  the  full  drift  of  the  tide  which  flowed  in  from 
Mexico,  was  first  an  island  and  afterward  an  oasis.  To  the  hungry 
and  war-worn  soldiers  of  SHELBY'S  expedition  it  was  a  Paradise. 
Mingo,  the  unparalleled  host  of  Mingo's  Hotel,  was  the  guardian 
angel,  but  there  was  no  terror  in  his  looks,  nor  any  flaming  sword 
in  his  hand.  Here,  everything  that  European  markets  could  afford, 
was  found  in  abundance.  Cotton,  magnificent  even  in  its  overthrow, 
had  chosen  this  last  spot  as  the  city  of  its  refuge  and  its  caresses. 
Fugitive  generals  had  gathered  here,  and  fugitive  senators  and 
fugitive  governors  and  fugitive  desperadoes,  as  well,  men  senten- 
tious of  speech  and  quick  of  pistol  practice.  These  last  had  taken 
immediate  possession  of  the  city,  and  were  rioting  in  the  old  royal 
fashion,  sitting  in  the  laps  of  courtesans  and  drinking  wines  fresh 
through  the  blockade  from  France.  Those  passers-by  who  jeered 
at  them  as  they  went  to  and  fro  received  a  fusillade  for  their  folly. 
Seven  even  had  been  killed — seven  good  Texan  soldiers — and  a 
great  tear  had  fallen  upon  the  place,  this  antique,  half -Mexican  city 
which  had  seen  Fannin's  new  Thermopylae,  and  the  black  Spanish 
death-flag  wind  itself  up  into  the  Alamo.  When  the  smoke  had 
cleared  away  and  the  powder-pall  had  been  lifted,  the  black  had 
become  crimson. 

First  a  speck  and  then  a  vulture,  until  the  streets  had  become 
dangerous  with  desperadoes.  They  had  plundered  a  dozen  stores, 
had  sacked  and  burnt  a  commissary  train,  had  levied  a  prestamo 
upon  the  citizens,  and  had  gone  one  night  to  "smoke  out  Tom 
Hindman,"  in  their  rough  border  dialect.  Less  fortunate  than  Put- 
nam, they  found  the  wolf's  den,  and  the  wolf  was  within,  but  he 
showed  t  his  teeth  and  made  fight.  They  hammered  at  his  door 
furiously.  A  soft  musical  voice  called  out: 

"  What  do  you  want?" 

Hindman  was  a  small  man,  having  the  will  and  the  courage  of 
a  Highlander.  Eloquent  of  speech,  cool,  a  colloquial  swordman 
whose  steel  had  poison  on  it  from  point  to  hilt,  audacious  in  plot, 
imperturbable  in  finesse,  gray-eyed,  proud  at  times  to  isolation, 
unsuccessful  in  the  field,  and  incomparable  in  the  cabinet,  it  was 
this  manner  of  a  man  who  had  called  out  from  behind  his  barri- 
cade. 

The  leader  of  the  attacking  party  answered  him: 

"  It  is  said  that  you  have  dealt  in  cotton, that  you  have  gold,  that 
you  are  leaving  the  country.  We  have  come  for  the  gold  —  that  is 

all," 

251 


252  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

"  Indeed  !  "  and  the  soft  voice  was  strangely  harsh  and  guttural 
now.  "  Then,  since  you  have  come  for  the  gold,  suppose  you  take 
the  gold.  In  the  absence  of  all  law,  might  makes  right." 

He  spoke  to  them  not  another  word  that  night,  but  no  man 
advanced  to  the  attack  upon  the  building,  and  when  the  daylight 
came,  Shelby  was  in  possession  of  the  city.  A  deputation  of  citizens 
had  traveled  nearly  twenty  miles  that  day  to  his  camp,  and 
besought  him  to  hasten  forward,  that  their  lives  and  their  property 
might  be  saved.  The  camp  was  in  deep  sleep,  for  the  soldiers  had 
traveled  far,  but  they  mustered  to  the  shrill  bugle  call,  and  rode  on 
through  the  long  night  afterwards,  for  ,honor  and  for  duty. 

Discipline  is  a  stern,  chaste  queen — beautiful  at  times  as 
Semiramis,  ferocious  as  Medea.  Her  hands  are  those  of  the  priest 
and  the  executioner.  They  excommunicate,  which  is  a  bandage  over 
the  eyes  and  a  platoon  of  musketry;  they  make  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
which  is  the  acquittal  of  a  drum-head  court-martial.  Most  generally 
the  excommunications  outnumber  the  genuflections. 

D.  A.  Williams  did  provost  duty  on  one  side  of  the  river,  A.  W. 
Slayback  upon  the  other.  What  slipped  through  the  hands  of 
the  first  fell  into  those  of  the  last.  What  escaped  both  fell  into  the 
water.  Some  men  are  born  to  be  shot,  some  to  be  hung,  and  some 
to  be  drowned.  Even  desperadoes  have  this  fatality  in  common 
with  the  Christians,  and  thus  in  the  ranks  of  the  plunderers  there  is 
predestination.  Peace  came  upon  the  city  as  the  balm  of  a  south- 
east trade-wind,  and  after  the  occupation  there  was  an  ovation. 
Women  walked  forth  as  if  to  afestival.  The  Plaza  transformed  itself 
into  a  parterre.  Roses  bloomed  in  the  manes  of  the  horses — these 
were  exotic;  roses  bloomed  in  the  faces  of  the  maidens  —  these  were 
divine.  After  Cannae  there  was  Capua.  Shelby  had  read  of  Hanni- 
bal, the  Carthagenian,  and  had  seen  Hannibal  the  elephant,  and  so 
in  his  mind  there  was  no  more  comparison  between  the  battle  andthe 
town  than  there  was  between  the  man  and  the  animal.  He  would 
rest  a  little,  much,  many,  glad  and  sunshiny  days,  filled  full  of  dal- 
liance, and  dancing,  and  music. 

Miago's  Hotel  from  a  cloister  had  become  to  be  a  cantonment. 
It  was  noisy  like  a  hive,  vocal  like  a  morning  in  May.  Serenading 
parties  improvised  themselves.  Jake  Connor  led  them,  an  artillery 
officer,  who  sank  like  Mario  and  fought  like  Victor  Emmanuel.  In 
his  extremes  he  was  Italian.  On  the  edge  of  all  this  languor  and  love, 
discipline,  like  a  fringe,  arrayed  itself.  Patrols  paraded  the  streets, 
sentinels  stood  at  the  corners,  from  post  to  post  martial  feet  made 
time,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  flood  of  defeat,  disaster,  greed,  over^ 
throw,  and  rending  asunder,  there  was  one  ark  which  floated  hither 
and  thither  armed  in  a  fashion  unknown  to  Noah,  bearing  a  strange 
barred  banner  at  the  fore — the  Banner  of  the  Bars.  When  it§ 
Ararat  wa.s  found  there  was  no  longer  any  more  Ark, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OP  THE  WAR.  253 

On  the  evening  of  the  second  day  of  occupation,  an  ambulance 
drew  up  in  front  of  the  Mingo  House.  Besides  the  driver,  there 
alighted  an  old  man,  aged,  bent,  spent  with  fatigue,  and  dusty  as 
a  foot  soldier.  Shelby  sat  in  the  balcony  watching  him,  a  light  of 
recognition  in  his  calm,  cold  eyes.  The  old  man  entered,  approached 
the  register,  and  wrote  his  name.  One  having  curiosity  enough  to 
look  over  his  shoulder  might  have  read  : 

"  WILLIAM  THOMPSON." 

Fair  enough  name  and  honest.  The  old  man  went  to  his  room 
and  locked  his  door.  The  windows  of  his  room  looked  out  upon 
the  plaza.  In  a  few  moments  it  was  noticed  that  the  blinds  were 
drawn,  the  curtains  down.  Old  men  need  air  and  sunlight;  they 
do  not  commence  hibernating  in  June. 
When  he  had  drawn  his  blinds,  Shelby  called  up  Connor. 

"Get  your  band  together,  Lieutenant,"  was  the  order. 

"For  what,  General?" 

"  Fora  serenade." 

"  A  serenade  to  whom?" 

"  No  matter,  but  a  serenade  just  the  same.  Order,  also  as  you 
go  out  by  headquarters,  that  all  the  men  not  on  duty,  get  under 
arms  immediately  and  parade  in  front  of  the  balcony." 

The  assembly  blew  a  moment  afterwards,  and  as  the  sun  set  a 
serried  mass  of  soldiers,  standing  shoulder  to  shoulder,  were  in  line, 
waiting.  Afterwards  the  band  marched  into  the  open  place 
reserved  for  it,  Connor  leading. 

Shelby  pointed  up  to  the  old  man's  window,  smiling. 

"Play  •  Hail  to  the  Chief,'  "  he  said. 

It  was  done.     No  answering  signals  at  the  window.    The  blinds 
from  a  look  of  silence  had  put  on  one  of  selfishness. 
Shelby  spoke  again: 

"Try  '  Dixie,'  boys.  If  the  old  man  were  dead  it  would  bring 
him  to  life  again." 

The  sweet,  familiar  strains  rose  up  rapid  and  exultant,  filling 
all  the  air  with  life  and  the  pulses  with  blood.    When  they  had  died 
with  the  sunset,  there  was  still  no  answer. 
Shelby  spoke  again : 

''That  old  man  up  there  is  Kirby  Smith  ;  I  would  know  him 
among  a  thousand.  Shout  for  him  until  you  are  hoarse." 

A  great  roar  burst  forth  like  a  tempest,  shaking  the  house,  and 
in  the  full  torrent  of  the  tide,  and  borne  aloft  as  an  awakening  cry, 
could  be  heard  the  name  of  ' '  Smith ! "  "  Smith ! " 

The  blinds  flew  open,  the  curtains  were  rolled  up,  and  in  plain 
view  of  this  last  remnant  of  his  magnificent  army  of  fifty  thousand 
men,  General  E.  Kirby  Smith  came  forth  undisguised,  a  look  full 
of  eagerness  and  wonderment  on  his  weary  and  saddened  face.  He 
did  not  understand  the  greeting,  the  music,  the  armed  men,  the 


254  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

eyes  that  had  penetrated  his  disguise,  the  shouts  that  had  invaded 
his  retreat.  Threatened  with  death  by  roving  and  predatory  bands 
from  Shreveport  to  San  Antonio,  he  knew  not  whether  one  friend 
remained  to  him  of  all  the  regiments  he  had  fed,  clothed,  flattered, 
and  left  unfought. 

Shelby  rose  up  in  his  place,  a  great  respect  and  tenderness  at 
work  in  his  heart  for  this  desolate  and  abandoned  man  who  had 
lived  the  military  life  that  was  in  him,  and  who — a  stranger  in 
a  land  filled  full  of  his  soldiers— had  not  so  much  as  a  broken 
flag  staff  to  lean  upon.  Given  not  overmuch  to  speaking  and  brief 
of  logic  and  rhetoric,  he  won  the  exile  when  he  said  to  him : 

"General  Smith,  you  are  the  ranking  officer  in  the  Trans-Missis- 
sippi Department.  These  are  your  soldiers,  and  we  are  here  to 
report  to  you.  Command,  and  we  obey;  lead  us  and  we  will  fol- 
low. In  this  public  manner,  and  before  all  San  Antonio,  with 
music  and  with  banners,  we  come  to  proclaim  your  arrival  in  the 
midst  of  that  little  band  which  knows  neither  dishonor  nor  sur- 
render. You  were  seeking  concealment,  and  you  have  found  a 
noontide  of  soldierly  obedience  and  devotion.  You  were  seeking 
the  night  and  the  obscurity  of  self-appointed  banishment  and 
exile,  and  you  have  found  guards  to  attend  you,  and  the  steadfast 
light  of  patriotism  to  make  your  pathway  plain.  We  bid  you 
good  morning  instead  of  good  night,  and  await,  as  of  old,  your 
further  orders." 

Shouts  arose  upon  shouts,  triumphal  music  filled  all  tiie  air 
again;  thrice  Smith  essayed  to  speak,  and  thrice  his' tears  mastered 
him.  In  an  hour  he  was  in  the  ranks  of  his  happy  soldiers  as  safe 
and  as  full  of  confidence  as  a  king  upon  his  throne. 

There  came  also  to  San  Antonio,  before  the  march  was  resumed, 
an  Englishman  who  was  a  mystery  and  an  enigma.  Some  said  he 
was  crazy,  and  he  might  have  been,  for  the  line  of  demarkation  isso 
narrow  and  so  fine  between  the  sound  and  the  unsound  mind,  that 
analysis,  however  acute,  fails  often  to  ascertain  where  the  first  ends 
and  the  last  begins.  This  Englishman,  however,  was  different  from 
most  insane  people  in  this — that  he  was  an  elegant  and  accomplished 
linguist,  an  extensive  traveler,  a  soldier  who  had  seen  service  in 
Algeria  with  the  French,  and  in  the  Crimea  with  the  British,  and  a 
hunter  who  had  known  Jules  Girard  and  Gordon  Cumming.  His 
views  upon  suicide  were  as  novel  as  they  were  logically  presented. 
His  knowledge  of  chemistry,  and  the  intricate  yet  fascinating 
science  of  toxicology,  surprised  all  who  conversed  with  him.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  middle  age,  seemingly  rich,  refined  in  all  of  his 
habits  and  tastes,  and  singularly  winning  and  fascinating  in  his  inter- 
course with  the  men.  Dudley,  that  eminent  Kentucky  physician, 
known  of  most  men  in  America,  declared,  after  the  observations  of 
a  long  life,  that  every  man  born  of  a  woman  was  crazy  upon  some 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  255 

one  subject.  This  Englishman,  therefore,  if  he  was  crazy  at  all, 
was  crazy  upon  the  subject  of  Railroad  Accidents.  He  had  a  fever- 
ish desire  to  see  one,  be  in  one,  enjoy  one,  and  run  the  risk  of  being 
killed  by  one.  He  had  traveled,  he  said,  over  two  continents,  pur- 
suing a  phantom  which  always  eluded  him.  Now  before  and  now 
behind  him,  and  then  again  upon  the  route  he  had  just  passed  over, 
he  had  never  so  much  as  seen  an  engine  ditched.  As  fcrareal, 
first-class  collision,  he  had  long  ago  despaired  of  its  enjoyment. 
His  talk  never  ended  of  wrecked  cars  and  shattered  locomotives. 
With  a  sigh  he  abandoned  his  hopes  of  a  luxury  so  peculiar  and  un- 
natural, and  came  as  a  private  to  an  expedition  which  was  taking  him 
away  from  the  land  of  railroads.  Later,  this  strange  Englishman, 
this  traveler,  linguist,  soldier,  philosopher,  chemist— this  moncrrc- 
niac,  too,  if  you  will — was  forcmcst  in  the  tctt^e  of  the  Salinas, 
fighting  splendidly,  and  well  to  the  front.  A  musket  ball  killed  his 
horse.  He  mounted  another  and  continued  to  press  forward.  The 
second  bullet  shattered  his  left  leg  from  the  knee  to  the  ankle.  It 
was  not  known  that  he  was  struck  until  a  third  ball,  entering  the 
breast  fairly,  knocked  him  clear  and  clean  ficm  the  saddle,  dying. 
He  lived  until  the  sun  went  down — an  hour  and  more.  Before  he 
died,  however,  the  strangest  part  of  his  life  was  to  come — that  of 
his  confession.  When  related,  in  its  proper  sequence,  it  will  be 
found  how  prone  the  best  of  us  are  to  forget  that  it  is  the  heart 
which  is  oftener  diseased  than  the  Letd.  He  Lad  suffered  rruch  in 
his  stormy  lifetime,  had  sinned  not  a  little,  and  had  died  as  a 
hunted  wolf  dies,  viciously  ard  at  bay. 

At  San  Antonio,  also,  Governor  Reynolds  and  General  Magruder 
joined  the  expedition.  The  first  was  a  man  whose  character  had  to 
be  tried  in  the  fiery  crucible  of  military  strife  atd  disaster,  that  it 
might  stand  out  grand,  massive  and  indomitable.  He  was  a  states- 
man and  a  soldier.  Much  residence  abroad  had  made  him  an 
accomplished  diplomatist.  He  spoke  three  foreign  languages 
fluently.  To  the  acute  analysis  of  a  cultivated  and  expanded  mind, 
he  had  added  the  exacting  logic  of  the  law.  Poetry,  and  all  the 
natural  and  outward  forms  of  beauty  affected  him  like  other  imagi- 
native men,  but  in  his  philosophy  he  discarded  the  ornate  for  the 
strong,  the  Oriental  architecture  for  the  Corinthian.  Revolution 
stood  revealed  before  him, stripped  of  all  its  glare  and  tinsel.  Asa 
skillful  physician,  he  laid  his  hand  upon  the  pulse  of  the  war  and 
told  the  fluctuations  of  the  disease  from  the  symptoms  of  the 
patient.  He  knew  the  condition  of  the  Confederacy  better  than  its 
President,  and  worked  like  a  giant  to  avert  the  catastrophe.  Shams 
fled  before  him  as  shadows  before  the  sun.  He  heard  no  voice  but 
of  patriotism,  knew  no  word  but  devotion,  had  no  ambition  but  for 
his  country,  blessed  no  generals  without  victorious  battle  fields,  and 
exiled  himself  before  he  would  surrender.  His  faith  was  spotless 


256  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO. 

in  the  sight  of  that  God  of  battles  in  whom  he  put  his  trust,  and  his 
record  shone  out  through  all  the  long,  dark  days  as  a  light  that  was 
set  upon  a  hill. 

Magruder  was  a  born  soldier,  dead  now  and  gone  to  heaven.  He 
had  a  figure  like  a  Mars  divested  of  immortality.  He  would  fight 
all  day  and  dance  all  night.  He  wrote  love  songs  and  sang  them, 
and  won  an  heiress  rich  beyond  comparison.  The  wittiest  mtn  in 
the  old  army,  General  Scott  adored  him.  His  speech  had  a  litp  that 
was  attractive,  inasmuch  as  it  lingered  over  its  puns  and  caressed 
its  rhetoric.  Six  feet  in  heigth,  ajid  straight  as  Tecumseh, 
Magruder,  in  full  regimentals,  was  the  handsomest  soldier  in  the  Con- 
federacy. Not  the  fair,  blonde  beauty  of  the  city,  odorous  of  per- 
fume and  faultless  in  tailor-fashion,  but  a  great,  bronzed  Ajax, 
mighty  thewed,  and  as  strong  of  hand  as  strong  of  digestion.  He 
loved  women,  too,  and  was  beloved  by  them.  After  Galveston, 
with  blood  upon  his  garments,  a  bullet  wound  upon  his  body,  and 
victory  upon  his  standards,  he  danced  until  there  was  daybreak  in 
the  sky  and  sunlight  upon  the  earth.  From  the  fight  to  the  frolic 
it  had  been  fifty-eight  hours  since  he  had  slept.  A  boy  at  §ixty- 
four,  penniless,  with  a  family  in  Europe,  homeless,  bereft  of  an 
avocation  he  had  grown  gray  in  following,  having  no  country  and 
no  calling,  he,  too,  had  come  to  his  favorite  officer  to  choose  his 
bivouac  and  receive  his  protection.  The  ranks  opened  eagerly  for 
this  wonderful  recruit,  who  carried  in  his  old-young  head  so  many 
memories  of  the  land  towards  which  all  were  journeying. 


CHAPTEK  V. 

FROM  San  Antonio  to  Eagle  pass  was  a  long  march  made  dreary 
by  mesquite  and  chapparal.  In  the  latter  war  laggards  abounded, 
sleeping  by  day  and  devouring  by  night.  These  hung  upon  the 
flanks  and  upon  the  rear  of  the  column,  relying  more  upon  force 
than  stratagem — more  upon  surprises  for  capture,  than  sabre  woik 
or  pistol  practice.  Returning  late  one  night  from  extra  duty,  D. 
A.  Williams  with  ten  men  met  a  certain  Captain  Bradford  with 
thirty-two.  Williams  had  seven  mules  that  Bradford  wanted,  and 
to  get  them  it  was  necessary  to  take  them.  This  he  tried  from  an 
ambush,  carefully  sought  and  cunningly  planned — an  ambush  all 
the  more  deadly  because  the  superb  soldier  Williams  \v  as  ridirg 
campward  under  the  moon,  thinking  more  of  women  than  of  war. 

In  front,  and  back  from  the  road  upon  the  right,  was  a  clump 
of  mesquite  too  thick  almost  for  a  centipede  to  crawl  through. 
When  there  was  water,  a  stream  bounded  one  edge  of  this  under- 
growth; when  there  was  no  water,  the  bed  of  this  stream  was  a 
great  ditch.  When  the  ambushment  was  had,  instead  of  water 
there  was  sand.  On  guard,  however,  more  from  the  force  of  habit 
than  from  the  sense  of  danger,  Williams  had  sent  a  young  soldier 
forward,  to  reconnoitre  and  to  stay  forward,  watching  well 
upon  the  right  hand  and  upon  the  left.  George  R.  Cruzen 
was  his  name,  and  a  braver  and  better  never  awoke  to  the  sound 
of  the  reveille.  Cruzen  had  passed  the  mesquite,  passed  beyond 
the  line  of  its  shadows,  passed  out  into  the  glare  of  a  full  har- 
vest moon,  when  a  stallion  neighed  fiercely  to  the  right  of  him. 
He  halted  by  instinct,  and  drew  himself  together  listening. 
Thanks  to  the  sand,  his  horse's  feet  had  made  no  noise;  thanks  to 
the  stallion,  he  had  stopped  before  the  open  jaws  of  the  defile  had 
closed  upon  their  prey.  He  rode  slowly  back  into  the  chapparal, 
dismounted,  tied  his  horse,  and  advanced  on  foot  to  the  brink  of 
the  ravine  just  where  it  skirted  the  edge  of  the  brush.  As  he  held 
his  breath  he  counted  thirty  stalwart  men  crouching  in  the  moon- 
light. Two  he  did  not  see.  These  were  on  guard  where  the  road 
crossed  the  dry  bed  of  the  creek.  Cruzen's  duty  was  plain  before 
him.  Regaining  his  horse  speedily,  he  galloped  back  to  where 
Williams  had  halted  for  a  bit  of  rest.  "Short  greeting  serves  in 
time  of  strife,"  and  Cruzen  stated  the  case  so  plainly  that  Williams 
could  almost  see  the  men  as  they  waited  there  for  his  little  band. 
He  bade  his  soldiers  dismount,  take  a  pistol  in  each  hand,  and  fol- 
low him.  Before  doing  this  the  horses  and  led  mules  were  securely 
fastened. 

257 


258  STIELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

Stealing  round  the  point  of  the  chapparal  noiselessly  as  the  flight 
of  birds  through  the  air,  he  came  upon  the  left  flank  of  the 
marauders,  upon  that  flank  which  had  been  left  unprotected  and 
unguarded.  He  was  within  five  paces  of  them  before  he  was  dis- 
covered. They  fired  a  point  blank  volley  full  in  his  face,  but  his 
detachment  fell  forward  and  escaped  untouched.  As  they  arose 
they  charged.  The  melee  was  close  and  suffocating.  Three  of 
Williams'  soldiers  died  in  the  ravine,  two  scrambled  out  wounded  to 
the  death,  one  carries  yet  a  bullet  in  his  body.  But  he  triumphed. 
Never  was  there  a  fight  so  small,  so  rapid  and  so  desperate.  Cruzen 
killed  three,  Cam.  Boucher  three,  Williams  four,  Ras.  Woods  five 
with  one  pistol,  a  heavy  English  dragoon,  and  other  soldiers  of  the 
ten  two  apiece.  Out  of  the  thirty -two,  twenty-seven  lay  dead  in  a 
space  three  blankets  might  have  covered.  Shelby  heard  the  firing, 
and  sent  swift  succor  back,  but  the  terrible  work  was  done.  Wil- 
liams rarely  left  a  fight  half  finished.  His  deeds  that  night  were 
the  talk  of  the  camp  for  many  long  marches  thereafter. 

The  next  day  at  noon,  while  halting  for  dinner,  two  scouts 
from  the  rear  —  James  Kirtley  and  James  Rudd  — galloped  in  with 
the  news  that  a  Federal  force,  3,000  strong,  with  a  six  gun  battery, 
was  marching  to  overtake  the  column. 

"Who  commands?"  asked  Shelby. 

"  Colonel  Johnson,"  replied  Rudd. 

"How  far  in  the  rear  did  you  see  him? " 

"About  seventeen  miles." 

"Mount  your  horse  again,  Rudd,  you  and  Kirtley,  and  await 
further  orders." 

Shelby  then  called  one  who  had  been  his  ordnance  master,  Maj. 
Jos.  Moreland.  Moreland  came,  polite,  versatile,  clothed  all  in  red 
and  gold  lace.  Fit  for  any  errand,  keen  for  any  frolic,  fond  of  any 
adventure,  so  only  there  were  wine  and  shooting  in  it,  Moreland 
reported. 

"I  believe,"  said  Shelby,  "you  can  turn  the  prettiest  period, 
make  the  grandest  bow,  pay  the  handsomest  compliment,  and  drink 
the  pleasantest  toast  of  any  man  in  my  command.  Take  these  two 
soldiers  with  you,  ride  to  the  rear  seventeen  miles,  seek  an  interview 
with  Colonel  Johnson,  and  give  him  this." 

It  was  a  note  which  he  handed  him — a  note  which  read  as 
follows: 

"  COLONEL:  My  scouts  inform  me  that  you  have  about  three 
thousand  men,  and  that  you  are  looking  for  me.  I  have  only  one 
thousand  men,  and  yet  I  should  like  to  make  your  acquaintance.  I 
will  probably  march  from  my  present  camp  about  ten  miles  further 
to-day,  halting  on  the  high  road  between  San  Antonio  and  Eagle 
Pass.  Should  you  desire  to  pay  me  a  visit,  you  will  find  me  at  home 
until  day  after  to-morrow." 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  259 

Moreland  took  the  message  and  bore  it  speedily  to  its  destination. 
Amid  many  profound  bows,  and  a  multitude  of  graceful  and  com- 
plimentary words,  he  delivered  it.  Johnson  was  a  gentleman,  and 
dismissed  the  embassy  with  many  promises  to  be  present.  He  did 
not  come.  That  night  he  went  into  camp  five  miles  to  the  rear,  and 
rested  there  all  the  next  day.  True  to  his  word,  Shelby  waited  for 
him  patiently,  and  made  every  preparation  for  a  stubborn  fight. 
Once  afterwards  Colonel  Johnson  came  near  enough  to  indicate  busi- 
ness, but  he  halted  again  at  the  eleventh  hour  and  refused  to  pick 
up  the  gage  of  battle.  Perhaps  he  was  nearer  right  than  his  antag- 
onist. The  war  was  over,  and  the  lives  of  several  hundred  men 
were  in  his  keeping.  He  could  afford  to  be  lenient  in  this,  the  last 
act  of  the  drama,  and  he  was.  Whatever  his  motives,  the  challenge 
remained  unaccepted.  As  for  Shelby,  he  absolutely  prayed  for  a 
meeting.  The  old  ardor  of  battle  broke  out  like  a  hidden  fire,  and 
burnt  up  every  other  consideration.  He  would  have  staked  all  and 
risked  all  upon  the  issue  of  the  fight — one  man  against  three. 

The  march  went  rapidly  on.  But  one  adventure  occurred  after 
Williams' brief  battle,  and  that  happened  in  this  wise:  Some  stores 
belonging  to  the  families  of  Confederate  soldiers  had  been  robbed 
by  renegades  and  deserters  a  few  hours  previous  to  Shelby's  arrival 
in  the  neighborhood.  A  delegation  of  women  came  to  his  camp 
seeking  restitution.  He  gave  them  retribution.  Eleven  miles  from 
the  plundered  habitations  was  a  rugged  range  of  hills,  inaccessible 
to  most  soldiers  who  had  ridden  and  raided  about  its  vicinity. 
Here,  as  another  Rob  Roy,  the  leader  of  the  robber  band  had  his 
rendezvous.  This  band  numbered,  all  told,  nearly  three  hundred, 
and  a  motley  band  it  was,  composed  of  Mexicans,  deserters  from 
both  armies,  Indians,  men  from  Arizona  and  California,  and  des- 
perate fugitives  from  justice,  whose  names  were  changed,  and 
whose  habitations  had  been  forgotten.  To  these  hills  the  property 
had  been  taken,  and  to  these  hills  went  Slayback  with  two  hundred 
men.  He  found  the  goods  piled  up  breast  high,  and  in  front  of 
them,  to  defend  them,  were  about  two  hundred  robbers.  They 
scarcely  waited  for  a  fire.  Slayback  charged  them  with  a  great 
rush,  and  with  the  revolver  solely.  The  nature  of  the  ground  alone 
prevented  the  attack  from  becoming  an  extermination.  Slayback 
finished  his  work,  as  he  always  did,  thoroughly  and  well,  and 
returned  to  the  command  without  the  loss  of  a  man. 

About  this  time  three  men  came  to  Shelby  and  represented  them- 
selves as  soldiers  of  Lee's  army  who  where  abandoning  the  country, 
and  who  wished  to  go  with  him  to  Mexico.  They  were  enrolled  at 
once  and  assigned  to  a  company.  In  a  day  or  two  some  suspicions 
were  aroused  from  the  fact  of  their  being  well  acquainted  with  the 
Spanish  language,  speaking  it  fluently  upon  every  occasion  when  an 
opportunity  offered.  Now  Lee's  soldiers  had  but  scant  time  for  the 


260  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO. 

acquirement  of  such  accomplishments,  and  it  became  at  last  a  ques- 
tion of  some  doubt  as  to  the  truth  of  the  statements  of  these  three 
men.  To  expose  th.em  fully  it  cost  one  of  them  his  arm,  the  other 
two  their  lives,  together  with  the  lives  of  thirteen  Mexicans  who, 
guiltless  in  the  intention,  yet  sinned  in  the  act. 

When  within  three  days'  journey  of  the  Rio  Grande,  General  Smith 
expressed  a  desire  to  precede  the  regiment  into  Mexico,  and  asked 
for  an  escort.  This  was  cheerfully  furnished,  and  Langhoin 
received  his  orders  to  guard  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Trans- 
Mississippi  Department  safely  to  the  river,  and  as  far  beyond  fcs  the 
need  might  be,  if  it  were  to  the  Pacific  ocean.  There  was  net  a 
drop  of  the  miser's  blood  in  Shelby's  veins.  In  everything  he  was 
prodigal — of  his  money,  when  he  had  any,  of  his  courage,  of  Ins 
blood,  of  his  men,  of  his  succor,  of  his  influence,  of  his  good  deeds 
to  his  comrades  and  superior  officers,  and  of  his  charities  to  others 
not  so  strong  and  so  dauntless  as  himself.  With  Smith  there  went 
also,  Magruder,  Prevost,  Wilcox,  Bee,  and  a  score  of  other  officers, 
who  had  business  with  certain  French  and  Mexican  officers  at  Pie- 
dras  Negras,  and  who  were  tired  of  the  trained  marching  and  the  regu- 
lar encampments  of  the  disciplined  soldiers. 

Langhorn  did  his  duty  well.  Rigid  in  all  etiquette,  punctilious 
in  the  performance  of  every  obligation,  as  careful  of  his  <Lai£i  as 
he  could  have  been  of  a  post  of  honor  in  the  front  of  battle,  Smith 
said  to  him,  when  he  bade  him  good-bye  : 

' '  With  an  army  of  such  soldiers  as  Shelby  has,  and  this  last  sad 
act  in  the  drama  of  exile  would  have  been  left  unrecorded." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

EAGLE  PASS  is  on  one  side  of  the  Rio  Grande  river,  Piedras  Negras 
upon  the  other.  The  names  indicate  the  countries.  Wherever  there 
is  an  American  there  is  always  an  eagle.  Two  thousand  Mexican 
soldiers  held  Piedras  Negras — followers  of  Jaurez — quaint  of  cos- 
tume and  piratical  of  aspect.  They  saw  the  head  of  Shelby's 
column  debouching  from  the  plateau  above  the  river — they  saw  the 
artillery  planted  and  commanding  the  town — they  saw  the  trained 
soldiers  form  up  rapidly  to  the  right  and  left,  and  they  wondered 
greatly  thereat.  No  boats  would  come  over.  Not  a  skiff  ventured 
beyond  the  shade  of  the  Mexican  shore,  and  not  a  sign  of  life,  except 
the  waving  of  a  blanket  at  intervals,  or  the  glitter  of  a  sombrero 
through  the  streets,  and  the  low,  squat  adobes. 

HJW  to  get  over  was  the  question.  The  river  was  high  and 
rapid. 

' '  Who  can  speak  Spanish  ?"  asked  Shelby. 

Only  one  man  answered — him  of  the  senorita  of  Senora — a 
recruit  who  had  joined  at  Corsicana,  and  who  had  neither  name  nor 
lineage. 

"  Can  you  swim  ?"  asked  Shelby. 

"Well." 

"  Suppose  you  try  for  a  skiff,  that  we  may  open  negotiations 
with  the  town." 

"  I  dare  not.     I  am  afraid  to  go  over  alone." 

Shelby  opened  his  eyes.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  such 
answer  had  been  made  by  a  soldier.  He  scarcely  knew  what  the 
man  was  saying. 

"Afraid!"  This  with  a  kind  of  half  pity.  "Then  stand 
aside."  This  with  a  cold  contempt.  Afterwards  his  voice  rang 
out  with  its  old  authority. 

"Volunteers  for  the  venture — swimmers  to  the  front."  Fifty 
stalwart  men  dashed  down  to  the  water,  dismounted — waiting.  He 
chose  but  two — Dick  Berry  and  George  Winship — two  dauntless 
young  hearts  fit  for  any  forlorn  hope  beneath  the  sun.  The  stream 
was  wide,  but  they  plunged  in.  No  matter  for  the  drowning. 
They  took  their  chances  as  they  took  the  waves.  It  was  only  one 
more  hazard  of  battle.  Before  starting,  Shelby  had  spoken  to 
Collins: 

"  Load  with  canister.  If  a  hair  of  their  heads  is  hurt,  not  one 
stone  upon  another  shall  be  lift  in  Piedras  Negras." 

The  current  was  strong  and  beat  the  men  down,  but  they  mas. 
tered  it,  and  laid  hands  upon  a  skiff  whose  owner  did  not  come  to 

261 


262  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

claim  it.  In  an  hour  a  flag  of  truce  was  carried  into  the  town, 
borne  by  Colonel  Frank  Gordon,  having  at  his  back  twenty-five 
men  with  side  arms  alone. 

Governor  Biesca,  of  the  State  of  Coahuila,  half  soldier  and 
half  civilian,  was  in  command — a  most  polished  and  elegant  man, 
who  quoted  his  smiles  and  italicised  his  gestures.  Surrounded  by  a 
glittering  staff,  he  dashed  into  the  Plaza  and  received  Gordon  with 
much  of  pomp  and  circumstance.  Further  on  in  the  day  Shelby 
came  over,  when  along  and  confidential  interview  was  held  between 
the  American  and  the  Mexican— between  the  General  and  the  Gov- 
ernor— one  blunt,  abrupt,  a  little  haughty  and  suspicious — the  other 
suave,  voluble,  gracious,  in  promises,  and  magnificent  in  offers  and 
inducements. 

Many  good  days  before  this  interview — before  the  terrible  trag- 
edy at  that  Washington  theatre  where  a  President  fell  dying  in  the 
midst  of  his  army  and  his  capital — Abraham  Lincoln  had  made  an 
important  revelation,  indirectly,  to  some  certain  Confederate  chief- 
tains. This  came  through  General  Frank  P.  Blair  to  Shelby,  and 
was  to  this  effect:  The  struggle  will  soon  be  over.  Overwhelmed 
by  the  immense  resources  of  the  United  States,  the  Southern  gov- 
ernment is  on  the  eve  of  an  utter  collapse.  There  will  be  a  million 
of  men  disbanded  who  have  been  inured  to  the  license  and  the  pas- 
sions of  war,  and  who  may  be  troublesome  if  nothing  more.  An 
open  road  will  be  left  through  Texas  for  all  who  may  wish  to  enter 
Mexico.  The  Confederates  can  take  with  them  a  portion  or  all  of 
the  arms  and  war  munitions  now  held  by  them,  and  when  the  da}~s 
of  their  enlistment  are  over,  such  Federal  soldiers  as  may  desire 
shall  also  be  permitted  to  join  the  Confederates  across  the  Rio 
Grande,  uniting  afterwards  in  an  effort  to  drive  out  the  French  and 
re-establish  Juarez  and  the  Republic.  Such  guarantees  had  Shelby 
received,  and  while  on  the  march  from  Corsicana  to  Eagle  Pass,  a 
multitude  of  messages  overtook  him  from  Federal  regiments  a*nd 
brigades,  begging  him  to  await  their  arrival — a  period  made  depend- 
ent upon  their  disbandment.  They  wished  above  all  things  to  take 
service  with  him,  and  to  begin  again  a  war  upon  imperialism  after 
the  war  upon  slavery. 

Governor  Biesca  exhibited  his  authority  as  Governor  of  Coa- 
huila, and  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  Coahuila,  Tamaulipas  and  New 
Leon,  and  offered  Shelby  the  military  control  of  these  three  States, 
retaining  to  himself  only  the  civil.  He  required  of  him  but 
thing,  a  full,  free  and  energetic  support  of  Benito  Juarez.  He 
gested,  also,  that  Shelby  should  remain  for  several  months  at  Pi( 
ras  Negras,  recruiting  his  regiment  up  to  a  division,  and  that  w] 
he  felt  himself  sufficiently  strong  to  advance,  he  should  move  agaii 
Monterey,  held  by  General  Jeanningros,  of  the  Third  Frei 
Zouaves,  and  some  two  thousand  soldiers  of  the  Foreign  Legic 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  263 

The  picture,  as  painted  by  this  fervid  Mexican,  was  a  most 
attractive  one,  and  to  a  man  like  Shelby,  so  ambitious  of  military 
fame,  and  so  filled  with  the  romance  and  the  adventure  of  his  situa- 
tion, it  was  doubly  so.  At  least  he  was  a  devout  Liberal.  Having 
but  little  respect  for  Mexican  promises  or  Mexican  civilization,  he 
yet  knew  that  a  corps  of  twenty  thousand  Americans  could  be  easily 
recruited,  and  that  after  he  once  got  a  foothold  in  the  country,  he 
could  preserve  it  for  all  time.  His  ideas  were  all  of  conquest.  If  he 
dreamed  at  all,  his  dreams  were  of  Cortez.  He  saw  the, golden 
gates  of  Sonora  rolled  back  at  his  approach,  and  in  his  visions,  per- 
haps, there  were  glimpses  of  those  wonderful  mines  guarded  even 
now  as  the  Persians  guarded  the  sacred  fire  of  their  gods. 

The  destiny  of  the  expedition  was  in  this  interview.  Looking 
back  now  through  the  placid  vista  of  the  peace  years,  there  are 
but  few  of  all  that  rugged  band  who  would  speak  out  to-day  as 
they  did  about  the  council  board  on  the  morrow  after  the  Ameri- 
can and  the  Mexican  had  shaken  hands  and  went  their  separate 
ways. 

The  council  was  long,  and  earnest,  and  resolute.  Men  made 
brief  speeches,  but  they  counted  as  so  much  gold  in  the  scales  that 
had  the  weighing  of  the  future.  If  Shelby  was  more  elaborate  and 
more  eloquent,  that  was  his  wont,  be  sure  there  were  sights  his  fer- 
vid fancy  saw  that  to  others  were  unrevealed,  and  that  evolving  itself 
from  the  darkness  and  the  doubts  of  the  struggle  ahead,  was  the  fair 
form  of  a  new  empire,  made  precious  by  knightly  deeds,  and  gra- 
cious with  romantic  perils  and  achievements. 

Shelby  spoke  thus  to  his  followers,  when  silence  had  fallen,  and 
men  were  face  to  face  with  the  future  : 

"If  you  are  all  of  my  mind,  boys,  and  will  take  your  chances 
along  with  me,  it  is  Juarez  and  the  Republic  from  this  on  unty  we 
die  here,  one  by  one,  or  win  a  kingdom.  We  have  the  nucleus  of  a 
fine  army — we  have  cannon,  muskets,  amunition,  some  good  pros- 
pects for  recruits,  a  way  open  to  Sonora,  and  according  to  the  faith 
that  is  in  us  will  be  the  measure  of  our  loss  or  victory.  Determine 
for  yourselves.  You  know  Biesca's  offer.  What  he  fails  to  per- 
form we  will  perform  for  ourselves,  so  that  when  the  game  is  played 
out  there  will  be  scant  laughter  over  any  Americans  trapped  or 
slain  by  treachery." 

There  were  other  speeches  made,  briefer  than  this  one  by  the 
leader,  and  some  little  of  whispering  apart  and  in  eagerness.  At 
last  Elliott  stood  up — the  spokesman.  He  had  been  a  fighting  colo- 
nel of  the  Old  Brigade,  he  had  been  wounded  four  times,  he  was 
very  stern  and  very  true,  and  so  the  lot  fell  to  him  to  make  answer. 

"General,  if  you  order  it,  we  will  follow  you  into  the  Pacific 
Ocean;  but  we  are  all  Imperialists,  and  would  prefer  service  under 
Maximilian." 


264  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

"  Is  this  your  answer,  men?  "  and  Shelby's  voice  had  come  back 
to  its  old  cheery  tones. 

"It  is." 

"Final?" 

"  As  the  grave." 

"Then  it  is  mine,  too.  Henceforth  we  will  fight  under  Maxi- 
milian. To-morrow,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  march 
shall  commence  for  Monterey.  Let  no  man  repine.  You  have 
chosen  the  Empire,  and,  perhaps,  it  is  well,  but  bad  or  good,  your 
fate  shall  be  my  fate,  and  your  fortune  my  fortune." 

The  comrade  spoke  then.  The  soldier  had  spoken  at  Marshall, 
at  Corsicana,  at  San  Antonio,  and  in  the  long  interview  held  with 
Biesca.  Time  has  revealed  many  things  since  that  meeting  in  June, 
1865 — many  things  that  might  have  been  done  and  welldone,  had  the 
frank  speech  of  Elliott  remained  unspoken — had  the  keen  feeling  of 
sympathy  between  the  French  and  the  Confederates  been  less 
romantic.  Shelby  was  wiser  then  than  any  man  who  followed  him, 
and  strong  enough  to  have  forced  them  in  the  pathway  that  lay 
before  his  eyes  so  well  revealed,  but  he  would  not  for  the  richest 
province  in  Mexico.  And  as  the  conference  closed,  he  said,  in  pass- 
ing out: 

"Poor,  proud  fellows  —  it  is  principle  with  them,  and  they 
had  rather  starve  under  the  Empire  than  feast  in  a  republic. 
Lucky,  indeed,  for  many  of  them  if  to  famine  there  is  not  added  a 
fusillade." 

Governor  Biesca's  bland  face  blankly  fell  when  Shelby 
announced  to  him  the  next  morning  the  decision  of  the  conference. 
He  had  slept  upon  the  happiness  of  a  coup  d'  etat;  when  he  awoke 
it  was  a  phantasy.  No  further  arguments  availed  him,  and  he  made 
none.  When  a  Mexican  runs  his  race,  and  comes  face  to  face  with 
the  inevitable,  he  is  the  most  indifferent  man  in  the  world.  A  mut- 
tered bueana,  a  folded  cigarrito,  a  bow  to  the  invisible,  and  he  has 
made  his  peace  with  his  conscience  and  his  God,  and  lies  or  sighs  in 
the>days  that  come  after  as  the  humor  of  the  fancy  takes  him. 

Biesca  had  all  of  his  nation's  nonchalance,  and  so,  when  for  his 
master's  service  he  could  not  get  men,  he  tried  for  munitions  of 
war.  Negotiations  for  the  purchase  of  the  arms,  the  artillery  and 
the  ammunition  were  begun  at  once.  A  prestamo  was  levied. 
Familiarity  with  this  custom  had  made  him  an  adept.  Being  a  part 
of  the  national  education,  it  was  not  expected  that  one  so  high  in 
rank  as  a  governor  would  be  ignorant  of  its  rudiments. 

Between  the  Piedras  Negras  and  Monterey  the  country  was  al- 
most a  wilderness.  A  kind  of  debatable  ground — the  robbers  had 
raided  it,  the  Liberals  had  plundered  it,  and  the  French  had  deso- 
lated it.  As  Shelby  was  to  pass  over  it,  he  could  not  carry  with 
him  his  teams,  his  wagons,  his  atillery  and  his  supply  trains.  Be- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  265 

sides  he  had  no  money  to  buy  food,  even  if  food  was  to  be  had,  and 
as  it  had  been  decided  to  abandon  Juarez,  it  was  no  longer  neces- 
sary to  retain  the  war  material.  Hence  the  prestamo.  A  list  of  the 
merchants  was  made;  the  amount  assessed  to  each  was  placed  oppo- 
site his  name;  an  adjutant  with  a  file  of  soldiers  called  upon  the  in- 
terested party;  bowed  to  him;  wished  him  happiness  and  high  fort- 
une ;  pointed  to  the  ominous  figures,  and  waited .  Generally  they 
did  not  wait  long.  As  between  the  silver  and  the  guard-house  the 
merchant  chose  the  former,  paid  his  toll,  cursed  the  Yankees,  made 
the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  went  to  sleep. 

By  dint  of  much  threatening,  and  much  mild  persuasiveness — 
such  persuasiveness  as  bayonets  give — sixteen  thousand  dollars  were 
got  together,  and,  for  safety  were  deposited  in  the  custom  house. 
On  the  morrow  they  were  to  be  paid  out. 

r  The  day  was  almost  a  tropical  one.  No  air  blew  about  the 
streets,  and  a  white  glare  came  over  the  sands  and  settled  as  a  cloud 
upon  the  houses  and  upon  the  water.  The  men  scattered  in  every 
direction,  careless  of  consequences,  and  indifferent  as  to  results. 
The  cafes  were  full.  Wine  and  women  abounded.  Beside  the 
bronzed  faces  of  the  soldiers  were  the  tawny  faces  of  the  senoritas. 
In  the  passage  of  the  drinking-horns  the  men  kissed  the  women. 
Great  American  oaths  came  out  from  the  tiendas,  harsh  at  times, 
and  resonant  at  times.  Even  in  their  wickedness  they  were 
national. 

A  tragedy  was  making  head,  however,  in  spite  of  the  white 
glare  of  the  sun,  and  the  fervid  kisses  under  the  rose.  The  three 
men,  soldiers  of  Lee's  army  ostensibly — men  who  had  been  fed  and 
sheltered — were  tempting  Providence  beyond  the  prudent  point. 
Having  the  hearts  of  sheep,  they  were  dealing  with  lions.  To 
their  treachery  they  were  about  to  add  bravado — to  the  magazine 
they  were  about  to  apply  the  torch. 

There  is  a  universal  Mexican  law  which  makes  a  brand  a  Bible. 
From  its  truth  there  is  no  appeal.  Every  horse  in  the  country  is 
branded,  and  every  brand  is  entered  of  record,  just  as  a  deed  or 
legal  conveyance.  Some  of  these  brands  are  intricate,  some 
uaique,  some  as  fantastic  as  a  jester's  cap, some  a  single  letter  of  the 
alphabet,  but  all  legal  and  lawful  brands  just  the  same,  and  good 
to  pass  muster  anywhere  so  only  there  are  alcaldes  and  sandalled 
soldiers  about.  Their  logic  is  extremely  simple,  too.  You  prove 
the  brand  and  take  the  horse,  no  matter  who  rides  him,  nor  how 
great  the  need  for  whip  and  epur. 

In  Shelby's  command  there  were  a  dozen  magnificent  horses,  fit 
for  a  king's  race,  who  wore  a  brand  of  an  unusual  fashion — many- 
lined  and  intricate  as  a  column  of  Arabesque.  They  had  been  ob- 
tained somewhere  above  San  Antonio,  and  had  been  dealt  with  as 
(pnly  cavalry  soldiers  know  how  to  deal  with  horses.  These  the 


266  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

three  men  wanted.  With  their  knowledge  of  Spanish,  they  had 
gone  among  the  Mexican  soldiers,  poisoning  their  minds  with  tales 
of  American  rapine  and  slaughter,  depicting,  with  not  a  little  of 
attractive  rhetoric,  the  long  and  weary  march  they  had  made  with 
these  marauders  that  their  beloved  steeds  might  not  be  taken  entirely 
away  from  them. 

The  Mexicans  listened,  not  from  generosity,  but  from  greed,  and 
swore  a  great  oath  by  the  Virgin  that  the  gringos  should  deliver  up 
every  branded  horse  across  the  Rio  Grande. 

Ike  and  Dick  Berry  rode  each  a  branded  horse,  and  so  did  Arm- 
istead,  Kirtley,  Winship,  Henry  Chiles,  John  Rudd,  Yowell  and 
two-score  more,  perhaps,  equally  fearless,  and  equally  ignorant  of 
any  other  law  besides  the  law  of  possession. 

The  afternoon  drill  was  over.  The  hot  glare  was  still  upon  the 
earth  and  the  sky.  If  anything,  the  noise  from  the  cafes  came 
louder  and  merrier.  Where  the  musical  voices  were  the  sweetest, 
were  the  places  where  the  women  abounded  with -disheveled  hair 
and  eyes  of  tropical  dusk. 

Ike  Berry  had  ridden  one  of  these  branded  horses  into  the  street 
running  by  regimental  headquarters,  and  sat  with  one  leg  crossed 
upon  the  saddle,  lazily  smoking.  He  was  a  low,  squat  Hercules, 
free  of  speech  and  frank  of  nature.  In  battle  he  always  laughed; 
only  when  eating  was  he  serious.  What  reverence  he  had  came 
from  the  appetite.  The  crumbs  that  fell  from  his  long,  yellow 
beard  were  his  benediction. 

Other  branded  horses  were  hitched  about,  easy  of  access  and 
unnoted  of  owner.  The  three  men  came  into  the  street,  behind  them 
a  young  Mexican  captain  handsome  as  Adonis.  This  captain  led 
thirty -five  soldiers,  with  eyes  to  the  front  and  guns  at  a  trail. 

Jim  Wood  lounged  to  the  door  of  a  cafe  and  remarked  them  as 
they  filed  by.  As  he  returned,  he  spoke  to  Martin  Kritzer,  toying 
with  an  Indian  girl,  beaded  and  beautiful. 

"  They  are  in  skirmishing  order.  Old  Joe  has  delivered  the 
arms;  it  may  be  we  shall  take  them  back  again." 

One  of  the  men  went  straight  up  to  Ike  Berry,  as  he  sat  cross- 
legged  upon  his  horse,  and  laid  his  hand  upon  the  horse's  bridle. 

Ike  knew  him  and  spoke  to  him  cheerily: 

"  How  now,  comrade?" 

Short  answer,  and  curt: 

"  This  is  my  horse;  he  wears  my  brand;  I  have  followed  him  to 
Mexico.  Dismount!" 

A  long  white  wreath  of  smoke  curled  up  from  Ike's  meerschaum 
in  surprise.  Even  the  pipe  entered  a  protest.  The  old  battle-smile 
came  back  to  his  face,  and  those  who  were  nearest  and  knew  him 
best,  knew  that  a  dead  man  would  soon  lay  upon  the  street.  He 
knocked  the  ashes  from  his  pipe  musingly;  he  put  the  disengaged 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  267 

foot  back  gently  in  the  stirrup;  he  rose  up  all  of  a  sudden  the  very 
incarnation  of  murder;  there  was  a  white  gleam  in  the  air;  a  heavy 
saber  that  lifted  itself  up  and  circled,  and  when  it  fell  a  stalwart  arm 
was  shredded  away,  as  a  girl  might  sever  a  silken  chain  or  the  ten- 
drils of  a  vine.  The  ghastly  stump,  not  over  four  inches  from  the 
shoulder,  spouted  blood  at  every  heart  throb.  The  man  fell  as  one 
paralyzed.  A  shout  arose.  The  Mexicans  spread  out  like  a  fan, 
and  when  the  fan  closed  it  had  surrounded  Berry,  and  Williams, 
and  Kirtley,  and  Collins,  andArmistead,  and  Langhorne,  and  Henry 
Childs,  and  Jim  Wood,  and  Rudd,  and  Moreland,  and  Boswell,  and 
McDougall,  and  the  brothers  Kritzer.  Yowell  alone  broke  through 
the  cordon  and  rushed  to  Shelby. 

Shelby  was  sitting  in  a  saloon  discussing  cognac  and  Catalan  with 
the  Englishman.  On  the  face  of  the  last  there  was  a  look  of  sorrow. 
Could  it  have  been  passible  that  the  sombre  shadows  of  the  Salinas 
were  already  beginning  to  gather  about  his  brow? 

A  glance  convinced  Shelby  that  Yowell  was  in  trouble. 

"  What  is  it?  "he  asked. 

"  They  are  after  the  horses." 

"What  horses?" 

"  The  branded  horses;  those  obtained  from  the  Rosser  ranche." 

"  Ah!  and  after  we  have  delivered  the  arms,  too,  Mexican  like — . 
Mexican  like." 

He  arose  as  he  spoke  and  looked  out  upon  the  street.  Some 
revolvers  were  being  fired.  These,  in  the  white  heat  of  the  after- 
noon, sounded  as  the  tapping  of  woodpeckers.  Afterward  a  steady 
roar  of  rifles  told  how  the  battle  went. 

"The  rally!  the  rally! — sound  the  rally!"  Shelby  cried  to  his 
bugler,  as  he  dashed  down  to  where  the  Mexicans  were  swarming 
about  Berry  and  the  few  men  nearest  to  him.  "  We  have  eaten  of 
their  salt,  and  they  have  betrayed  us;  we  have  come  to  them  as 
friends,  and  they  would  strip  us  like  barbarians.  It  is  war  again — 
war  to  the  knife!" 

At  this  moment  the  wild,  piercing  notes  of  an  American  bugle 
were  heard — clear,  penetrating,  defiant — notes  that  told  of  sore  stress 
among  comrades,  and  pressing  need  of  succor. 

The  laughter  died  in  the  cafes  as  a  night  wind  when  the  morning 
comes.  The  bugle  sobered  all  who  were  drunk  with  drink  or  dal- 
liance. Its  voice  told  of  danger  near  and  imminent — of  a  field 
needing  harvesters  who  knew  how  to  die. 

The  men  swarmed  out  of  every  door- way — poured  from  under 
every  portal — flushed,  furious,  ravenous  for  blood.  They  saw  the 
Mexicans  in  the  square,  the  peril  of  Berry  and  those  nearest  to  him, 
and  they  asked  no  further  questions.  A  sudden  crash  of  revolvers 
came  fi^st,  close  and  deadly;  a  yell,  a  .shout,  and  then  a  fierce,  hot 
charge.  Ras.  Woods,  with  a  short  Enfield  rifle  in  his  hand,  stood 


268  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

fair  in  the  street  looking  up  at  the  young  Mexican  Captain  with  his 
cold  gray  eyes  that  had  in  them  never  a  light  of  pity.  As  the  press 
gathered  about  him,  the  rifle  crept  straight  to  the  front  and  rested 
there  a  moment,  fixed  as  fate.  It  looked  as  if  he  was  aiming  at  a 
flower — the  dark  olive  beauty  of  the  Spaniard  was  so  superb. 

"Spare  him  I"  shouted  a  dozen  reckless  soldiers  in  a  breath, 
"he  is  too  young  and  too  handsome  to  die." 

la  vain!  A  sharp,  sudden  ring  was  the  response;  the  Captain 
tossed  his  arms  high  in  the  air,  leaped  up  suddenly  as  if  to  catch 
something  above  his  head,  and  fell  forward  upon  his  face,  a  corpse. 
A  wail  of  women  arose  upon  the  sultry  evening — such  as  may  have 
been  heard  in  David's  household  when  back  from  the  tangled  brush- 
wood they  brought  the  beautiful  Absalom. 

"  The  life  upon  his  yellow  hair. 
But  not  within  his  eyes,1' 

The  work  that  followed  was  quick  enough  and  deadly  enough 
to  appal  the  stoutest.  Seventeen  Mexicans  were  killed,  including 
the  Captain,  together  with  the  two  Americans  who  had  caused  the 
encounter.  The  third,  strange  to  say,  recovered  from  his  ghastly 
wound,  and  can  tell  to  this  day,  if  he  still  lives,  of  the  terrible 
prowess  of  that  American  soldier  who  shredded  his  arm  away  as  a 
scythe  blade  might  a  handful  of  summer  wheat. 

A  dreadful  commotion  fell  upon  Piedras  Negras  after  the  battle 
in  the  street  had  been  finished.  The  long  roll  was  beaten,  and  the 
Mexican  garrison  rushed  to  arms.  Shelby's  men  were  infuriated 
beyond  all  immediate  control,  and  mounted  their  horses  without 
orders  for  a  further  battle.  One  detachment,  led  by  Williams, 
swept  down  to  where  the  artillery  and  ammunition  wagons  were 
packed  and  dispersed  the  guard  after  a  rattling  broadside.  Lang- 
horne  laid  hands  upon  the  Custom-house  and  huddled  its  sentinels 
in  a  room  as  so  many  boys  that  needed  punishment.  Separate 
parties  under  Fell,  Winship,  Henry  Chiles,  Kirtley,  Jim  Wood  and 
Martin  Kirtzer  seized  upon  the  skiffs  and  the  boats  at  the  wharf. 
They  meant  to  pillage  and  sack  the  town,  and  burn  it  afterward. 
Women  went  wailing  through  the  streets;  the  church  bells  rang 
furiously;  windows  were  darkened  and  barricaded;  and  over  all  the 
din  and  turmoil — the  galloping  of  horses,  and  the  clanking  of  steel 
— arose  the  harsh,  gathering  cry  of  the  Mexican  long  roll — sullen, 
hoarse,  discordant.  Shelby  stormed  at  his  men,  and  threatened. 
For  the  first  and  the  last  time  in  his  career,  they  had  passed  beyond 
his  keeping.  At  a  critical  juncture  Governor  Biesca  rushed  down 
into  the  square,  pale,  his  hat  off,  pleading  in  impassioned  Spanish, 
apologizing  in  all  the  soft  vowels  known  to  that  soft  and  sounding 
language. 

Shelby  would  bow  to  him  in  great  gravity,  understanding  not 
one  word,  conversing  in  English  when  the  tide  of  Spanish  had  run 
itself  out: 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  059 

"  It's  mostly  Greek  to  me,  Governor,  but  the  devil  is  in  the  boys, 
for  all  that." 

Discipline  triumphed  at  last,  however,  and  one  by  one  the  men 
came  back  to  their  duty  and  their  obedience.  They  formed  a  solid, 
ominous  looking  column  in  front  of  headquarters,  dragging  with 
them  the  cannon  that  had  been  sold,  and  the  cannon  they  had  cap- 
tured from  the  enemy. 

"  We  want  to  sleep  to-night,"  they  said,  in  their  grim  soldier 
humor, "  and  for  fear  of  Vesuvius,  we  have  brought  the  crater  with 
us." 

As  the  night  deepened,  a  sudden  calm  fell  upon  the  city.  Biesca 
had  sent  his  own  troops  to  barracks,  and  had  sworn  by  every  saint 
in  the  calendar  that  for  the  hair  of  every  American  hurt  he  would 
sacrifice  a  hecatomb  of  Mexicans.  He  feared,  and  not  without 
cause,  the  now  thoroughly  aroused  and  desperate  men  who  were 
inflamed  by  drink,  and  who  had  good  reason  for  much  ill-will  and 
hatred.  To  Shelby's  assurances  of  safety  he  offered  a  multitude  of 
bows,  each  one  more  profound  and  more  lowly  than  the  other,  until 
at  last,  from  the  game  of  war,  the  two  chiefs  had  become  to  play  a 
game  of  diplomacy.  Biesca  wanted  his  cannon  back,  and  Shelby 
wanted  his  money  for  them.  In  the  end,  both  were  satisfied. 

The  men  had  gone  to  quarters,  and  supper  was  being  cooked. 
To  the  feeling  of  revenge  had  been  added  at  last  one  of  forgiveness. 
Laughter  and  songs  issued  again  from  the  wine-shops.  At  this 
moment  a  yell  was  heard — a  yell  that  was  a  cross  between  an 
Indian  war-whoop  and  a  Mexican  cattle-call.  A  crowd  of  soldiers 
gathered  hastily  in  the  street.  Again  the  yell  was  repeated,  this 
time  nearer,  clearer,  shriller  than  before.  Much  wonderment  en- 
sued. The  day  had  been  one  of  surprises.  To  a  fusilade  there  was 
to  be  added  a  frolic.  Up  the  street  leading  from  the  river,  two  men 
approached  slowly,  having  a  third  man  between  them.  When  near 
enough,  the  two  first  were  recognized  as  the  soldiers,  Joseph  More- 
land  and  William  Fell.  The  other  man,  despite  the  swarthy  hue  of 
his  countenance,  was  ghastly  pale.  He  had  to  be  dragged  rather 
than  led  along.  Fell  had  his  sabre  drawn,  Moreland  his  revolver. 
The  first  was  fierce  enough  to  perform  amputation  ;  the  last  suave 
enough  to  administer  chloroform. 

When  Moreland  reached  the  edge  of  the  crowd  he  shouted : 

"  Make  way,  Missourians,  and  therefore  barbarians,  for  the  only 
living  and  animated  specimen  of  the  genus  Polyglott  now  upon  the 
North  American  continent.  Look  at  him,  you  heathens,  and  uncover 
yourselves.  Draw  nigh  to  him,  you  savages,  and  fall  upon  your 
knees.  Touch  him,  you  blood-drinkers,  and  make  the  sign  of  the 
cross." 

"  What  did  you  call  him?"  asked  Armistead. 


270  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

"A  Polyglott,  you  Fejae  Islander;  a  living  dictionary;  a 
human  mausoleum  with  the  bones  of  fifty  languages  ;  a  lusus 
naturae  in  a  land  of  garlic,  stilettos  and  straw  hats." 

The  man  himself  was  indeed  a  curiosity.  Born  of  Creole 
parents  in  New  Orleans,  he  had  been  everywhere  and  had  seen 
everything.  When  captured  he  was  a  clerk  in  the  custom  house 
French,  Spanish,  English,  Italian,  German,  modern  Greek,  Gumbo 
French,  Arabic,  Indian  dialects  without  number,  and  two  score  or 
so  of  patois  rolled  off  from  his  tongue  in  harsh  or  hurried  accents 
accordingly  as  the  vowels  or  the  consonants  were  uppermost.  He 
charmed  Shelby  from  the  beginning.  When  he  felt  that  he  was 
free  his  blood  began  to  circulate  again  like  quicksilver  Invited  to 
supper,  he  remained  late  over  his  wine,  singing  songs  in  all  manner 
of  languages,  and  boasting  in  all  manner  of  tongues.  When  he 
bowed  himself  out  his  voice  had  in  it  the  benediction  that  follows 
prayer. 

That  night  he  stole  $2,000. 

The  money  for  the  arms  and  the  ammunition  had  been  stored  in 
the  custom  house  and  he  had  the  key.  The  next  morning  a  sack 
was  missing.  Biesca  swore,  Shelby  seemed  incredulous,  the  Poly- 
glott only  smiled.  Between  the  oath  and  the  smile  there  was  this 
difference  :  the  first  came  from  empty  pockets,  the  last  from  more 
money  than  the  pockets  could  hold.  Master  of  many  languages,  he 
ended  by  being  master  of  the  situation. 

In  the  full  flow  of  the  Polyglott's  eloquence,  however,  Shelby 
forgot  his  loss,  and  yielded  himself  again  to  the  invincible  charms 
of  his  conversation.  When  they  parted  for  the  last  time  Shelby  had 
actually  given  him  a  splendid  pistol,  ivory-handled,  and  wrought 
about  the  barrel  with  gold  and  figure  work.  So  much  for  erudition. 
Even  in  the  desert  there  are  date  and  palm  trees. 

The  formal  terms  of  the  transfer  were  concluded  at  last.  Biesca 
received  his  arms,  paid  his  money,  buried  the  dead  soldiers,  and 
blessed  all  who  came  into  Piedras  Negras  and  went  out  from  it.  His 
last  blessings  were  his  best.  They  came  from  his  heart  and 
from  the  happy  consciousness  that  the  Americans  were  about  to  de- 
part forever  from  the  midst  of  his  post  of  honor  and  his  possessions. 

Marching  southward  from  the  town,  the  column  had  reached 
the  rising  ground  that  overlooked  the  bold  sweep  of  the  rapid  river, 
the  green  shores  of  Texas  beyond,  the  fort  on  the  hill,  from  which 
a  battered  Confederate  flag  yet  hung,  and  a  halt  was  called.  Rear 
and  van  the  men  were  silent.  All  eyes  were  turned  behind  them. 
Some  memories  of  home  and  kindred  may  have  come  then  as  dreams 
come  in  the  night;  some  placid  past  may  have  outlined  itself  as  a  mirage 
against  the  clear  sky  of  the  distant  north;  some  voice  may  have 
spoken  even  then  to  ears  that  heard  and  heeded,  but  the  men  made  no 
sign.  The  bronzed  faces  never  softened.  As  the  ranks  closed  up, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  271 

waiting,  a  swift  horseman  galloped  up  from  the  town — a  messenger. 
He  sought  the  leader  and  found  him  by  instinct. 
.     ' '  Amiga,"  he  said,  giving  his  hand  to  Shelby. 

"  Friend,  yes.    It  is  a  good  name.     Would  you  go  with  us?  " 

"No." 

"What  will  you  have?  " 

"One  last  word  at  parting.  Once  upon  a  time  in  Texas  an 
American  was  kind  to  me.  Maybe  he  saved  my  life.  I  would  be- 
lieve so,  because  I  want  a  reason  for  what  is  done  between  us." 

"Speak  out  fairly,  man.    If  you  need  help,  tell  me." 

"  No  help,  Senor,  no  money,  no  horses,  no  friendship — none  of 
these.  Only  a  few  last  words." 

"  What  are  they?"  fc 

"  Beware  of  the  Salinas!" 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  Salinas  was  a  river,  and  why  should  one  beware  of  it?  Its 
water  was  cool,  the  shade  of  its  trees  grateful,  its  pasturage  abun- 
dant, and  why  then  should  the  command  not  rest  some  happy  days 
upon  its  further  banks,  sleeping  and  dreaming?  Because  of  the 
ambush. 

Where  the  stream  crossed  the  high,  hard  road  leading  down  to 
Monterey,  it  presented  on  either  side  rough  edges  of  rock,  slippery 
and  uncertain.  To  the  left  some  falls  appeared.  In  the  mad  vortex 
of  water,  ragged  pinnacles  reared  themselves  up,  hoary  with  the 
white  spray  of  the  breakers — grim  cut-throats  in  ambush  in  mid 
river. 

Below  these  falls  there  were  yet  other  crossings,  and  above  them 
only  two.  Beyond  the  fords  no  living  thing  could  make  a  passage 
sure.  Quicksands  and  precipices  abounded,  and  even  in  its  solitude 
the  river  had  fortified  itself.  Tower  and  moat  and  citadel  all  were 
there,  and  when  the  flood-time  came  the  Salinas  was  no  longer  a 
river — it  was  a  barrier  that  was  impassable. 

All  the  country  round  about  was  desolate.  What  the  French 
had  spared  the  guerrillas  had  finished.  To  be  sure  that  no  human 
habitation  was  left,  a  powerful  war  party  of  Lipan  Indians  came 
after  the  guerrillas,  spearing  the  cattle  and  demolishing  the  f armiEg 
implements.  These  Lipans  were  a  cruel  and  ferocious  tribe,  dwelling 
in  the  mountains  of  Sonora,  and  descending  to  the  plains  to  slaugh- 
ter and  desolate.  Fleetly  mounted,  brave  at  an  advantage,  shooting 
golden  bullets  of tener  than  leaden  ones,  crafty  as  all  Indians  are, 
superior  to  all  Mexicans,  served  by  women  whom  they  had  captured 
and  enslaved,  they  were  crouched  in  ambush  upon  the  further  side 
of  the  Salinas,  four  hundred  strong. 

The  weaker  robber  when  in  presence  of  the  stronger  is  always 
the  most  blood-thirsty.  The  lion  will  strike  down,  but  the  jackal 
devours.  The  Lipans  butchered  and  scalped,  but  the  Mexicans 
mutilated  the  dead  and  tortured  the  living. 

With  the  Lipans,  therefore,  there  were  three  hundred  native 
Mexicans,  skilled  in  all  the  intricacies  of  the  chapparal — keen  upon 
all  the  scents  that  told  of  human  prey  or  plunder.  As  ghastly  skir- 
mishers upon  the  outposts  of  the  ambushment,  these  had  come  a 
day's  march  from  the  river  to  where  a  little  village  was  at  peace  and 
undefended.  As  Shelby  marched  through  there  was  such  handi- 
work visible  of  tiger  prowess,  that  he  turned  to  Elliott,  that  grim 
Saul  who  never  smiled,  and  said  to  him,  curtly: 

"  Should  the  worst  come  to  the  worst,  keep  one  pistol  ball  for 
yourself,  Colonel.  Better  suicide  than  a  fate  like  this." 

272 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  273 

The  spectacle  was  horrible  beyond  comparison.  Men  hung  sus- 
pended from  door-facings  literally  flayed  alive.  Huge  strips  of  skin 
dangled  from  them  as  tattered  garments  might  hang.  Under  some 
a  slow  fire  had  been  kindled,  until  strangulation  came  as  a  tardy 
mercy  for  relief .  There  were  the  bodies  of  some  children  among 
the  slain,  and  one  beautiful  woman,  not  yet  attacked  by  the  ele- 
ments, seemed  only  asleep.  The  men  hushed  their  rough  voices  as 
they  rode  by  her,  and  more  than  one  face  lit  up  with  a  strange  pity 
that  had  in  it  the  light  of  a  terrible  vengeance. 

The  village  with  its  dead  was  left  behind,  and  a  deep  silence  fell 
upon  the  column,  rear  and  van.  The  mood  of  the  stranger  English- 
man grew  sterner  and  sadder,  and  when  the  night  and  the  camp 
came  he  looked  more  keenly  to  hia  arms  than  was  his  wont,  and 
seemed  to  take  a  deeper  interest  in  his  horse. 

Gen.  Magruder  rode  that  day  with  the  men — the  third  of  July. 
"To-morrow  will  be  the  Fourth,  boys,"  he  said,  when  dismount- 
iag,  "and  perhaps  we  shall  have  fire  works." 

Two  deserters— two  Austrians  from  the  Foreign  Legion  under 
Jeanningros  at  Monterey — straggled  into  the  picket  lines  before 
tatfoo  and  were  brought  directly  to  Shelby.  They  believed  death 
to  be  certain  and  so  they  told  the  truth. 

"  Where  do  you  go?  "  asked  Shelby. 

"To  Texas." 

"  And  why  to  Texas?" 

"  For  a  home;  for  any  life  other  than  a  dog's  life;  for  freedom, 
for  a  country." 

"  You  are  soldiers,  and  yet  you  desert?" 

"We  were  soldiers,  and  yet  they  made  robbers  of  us.  We  do 
not  hate  the  Mexicans.  They  never  harmed  Austria,  our  country." 

"  Where  did  you  cross  the  Salinas?" 

"  At  the  ford  upon  the  main  road." 

"  Who  were  there  and  what  saw  you?" 

"  No  living  thing,  General.  Nothing  but  trees  and  rocks  and 
water." 

They  spoke  simple  truth.  Safer  back  from  an  Indian  jungle 
might  these  men  have  come,  than  from  a  passage  over  the  Salinas 
with  a  Lipan  and  Mexican  ambushment  near  at  hand. 

It  was  early  in  the  afternoon  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  1865,  when 
the  column  approached  the  Salinas  river.  The  march  had  been 
long,  hot  and  dusty.  The  men  were  in  a  vicious  humor,  and  in 
excellent  fighting  condition.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  ambush- 
ment, and  had  congratulated  themselves  upon  plentiful  grass  and 
refreshing  water. 

Shelby  called  a  halt  and  ordered  forward  twenty  men  under  com- 
mand of  Williams  to  reconnoitre.  As  they  were  being  told  off  for 
the  duty,  the  commander  spoke  to  his  surbordinate: 


274  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

"  It  may  be  child's  play  or  warrior's  work,  but  whatever  it  is,  let 
me  know  quickly." 

Williams'  blue  eyes  flashed.  He  had  caught  some  glimpses  of 
the  truth,  and  he  knew  there  was  danger  ahead. 

"  Any  further  orders,  General?"  he  asked  as  he  galloped  away. 

"None.  Try  the  ford  and  penetrate  the  brush  beyond.  If  you 
find  one  rifle  barrel  among  the  trees,  be  sure  there  are  five  hundred 
close  at  hand.  Murderers  love  to  mass  themselves." 

Williams  had  ridden  forward  with  his  detachment  some  five 
minutes'  space,  when  the  column  was  again  put  in  motion.  From 
the  halt  to  the  river's  bank  was  an  hour's  ride.  Before  commencing 
the  ride,  however,  Shelby  had  grouped  together  his  officers,  and 
thus  addressed  them  : 

"  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  what  is  waiting  for  us  at  the  river, 
which  knowledge  is  simply  nothing  at  all.  This  side  Piedras  Negras 
a  friendly  Mexican  spoke  some  words  at  parting,  full  of  warning, 
and  doubtless  sincere.  He  at  least  believed  in  danger,  and  so  do  I. 
Williams  has  gone  forward  to  flush  the  game,  if  game  there  be,  and 
here  before  separating  I  wish  to  make  the  rest  plain  to  you.  Listen, 
all.  Above  and  below  the  main  road,  the  road  we  are  now  upon, 
there  are  fords  where  men  might  cross  at  ease  and  horses  find  safe  and 
certain  footing.  I  shall  try  none  of  them.  When  the  battle  opens, 
and  the  bugle  call  is  heard,  you  will  form  your  men  in  fours  and 
follow  me.  The  question  is  to  gain  the  further  bank,  and  after  that 
we  shall  see." 

Here  something  of  the  old  battle  ardor  came  back  to  his  face,  and 
his  eyes  caught  the  eyes  of  the  officers.  Like  his  own  they  were  full 
of  fire  and  high  resolve. 

"  One  thing  more,"  he  said,  "  before  we  march.  Come  here, 
Elliott." 

The  scarred  man  came,  quiet  as  the  great  horse  he  rode. 

"  You  will  lead  the  forlorn  hope.  It  will  take  ten  men  to  form 
it.  That  is  enough  to  give  up  of  my  precious  ones.  Call  for  volun- 
teers— for  men  to  take  the  water  first,  and  draw  the  first  merciless 
fire.  After  that  we  will  all  be  in  at  the  death." 

Ten  were  called  for,  two  hundred  responded.  They  had  but 
scant  knowledge  of  what  was  needed,  and  scantier  care.  In  the 
ranks  of  the  ten,  however,  there  .were  those  who  were  fit  to  fight 
for  a  kingdom.  They  were  Maurice,  Langhorne,  James  Wood, 
George  Winship,  William  Fell,  Ras.  Woods,  James  Kirtley, 
McDougall,  James  Rudd,  James  Chiles  and  James  Cundiff. 

Cundiff  is  staid,  and  happy,  and  an  editor  sans  peur  et  sans 
reproche  to-day  in  St.  Joseph.  He  will  remember,  amid  all  the  mul- 
tifarious work  of  his  hands — his  locals,  his  editorials,  his  type-set- 
ting, his  ledger,  his  long  nights  of  toil  and  worry — and  to  his  last 
day,  that  terrible  charge  across  the  Salinas,  water  to  the  saddle- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAP  OF  THE  WAR.  275 

girths,  and  seven  hundred  muskets  pouring  forth  an  unseen  and 
infernal  fire. 

The  march  went  on,  and  there  was  no  news  of  Williams.  It 
was  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  sun's  rays  seemed  to  pene- 
trate the  very  flesh.  Great  clouds  of  dust  arose,  and  as  there  was 
no  wind  to  carry  it  away,  it  settled  about  the  men  and  the  horses  as 
a  garment  that  was  oppressive. 

Elliott  kept  right  onward,  peering  straight  to  the  front,  watching. 
Between  the  advance  and  the  column  some  two  hundred  paces  inter- 
vened. When  the  ambush  was  struck  this  distance  had  decreased 
to  one  hundred  paces — when  the  work  was  over  the  two  bodies  had 
become  one.  Elliott  was  wounded  and  under  his  dead  horse, 
Cundiff  was  wounded,  Langhorne  was  wounded,  Winship  was 
wounded,  and  Wood,  and  McDougall,  and  Fell.  Some  of  the  dead 
were  never  seen  again.  The  falls  below  the  ford  received  them  and 
the  falls  buried  them.  Until  the  judgment  day,  perhaps,  will  they 
keep  their  precious  sepulchres. 

Over  beyond  the  yellow  dust  a  long  green  line  arose  against  the 
horizon.  This  was  the  further  edge  of  the  Salinas,  dense  with  trees, 
and  cool  in  the  distance.  The  column  had  reached  its  shadow  at 
last.  Then  a  short,  sharp  volley  came  from  the  front,  and  then  a 
great  stillness.  One  bugle  note  followed  the  volley.  The  column, 
moved  by  a  viewless  and  spontaneous  impulse,  formed  into  fours 
and  galloped  on  to  the  river — Elliott  leading,  and  keeping  his  dis- 
tance well. 

The  volley  which  came  from  the  front  had  been  poured  sud- 
denly into  the  face  of  Williams.  It  halted  him.  His  orders  were 
to  uncover  the  ambush,  not  to  attack  it,  and  the  trained  soldier 
knew  as  well  the  number  waiting  beyond  the  river  by  the  ringing  of 
their  muskets  as  most  men  would  have  known  after  the  crouching 
forms  had  been  seen  and  counted. 

He  retreated  beyond  range  and  waited.  Elliott  passed  on  beyond 
and  formed  his  little  band — the  ten  dauntless  volunteers  who  were 
anxious  to  go  first  and  who  were  not  afraid  to  die. 

Shelby  halted  the  main  column  still  further  beyond  rifle  range 
and  galloped  straight  up  to  Williams. 

"You  found  them,  it  seems." 

"Yes,  General." 

"How  many?"  ' 

"Eight  hundred  at  the  least." 

"How  armed?" 

"  With  muskets." 

"  Good  enough.  Take  your  place  in  the  front  ranks.  I  shall 
lead  the  column." 

Turning  to  Elliott,  he  continued: 

"Advance  instantly,  Colonel.  The  sooner  over  the  sooner  to 
sleep.  Take  the  water  as  you  find  it,  and  ride  straight  forward. 


276  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

Williams  says  there  are  eight  hundred,  and  Williams  is  rarely  mis- 
taken.    Forward!" 

Elliott  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  his  forlorn  hope  and  drew 
his  saber.  With  those  who  knew  him,  this  meant  grim  work  some- 
where. Cundiff  spoke  to  Langhorne  upon  his  right: 

"  Have  you  said  your  prayers,  Captain?  " 

"  Too  late  now.     Those  who  pray  best  pray  first." 

From  a  walk  the  horses  moved  into  a  trot.  Elliott  threw  his 
eyes  backward  over  his  men  and  cried  out: 

"Keep  your  pistols  dry.  It  will  be  hot  work  on  the  other 
side:" 

As  they  struck  the  water  some  Indian  skirmishers  in  front  of 
the  ambush  opened  fire.  The  bullets  threw  the  white  foam  tip  in 
front  of  the  leading  files,  but  did  no  damage.  By  and  by  the  stray 
shots  deepened  into  a  volley. 

Elliott  spoke  again,  and  no  more  after  until  the  battle  was 
finished: 

"  Steady  men!" 

Vain  warning!  The  rocks  were  not  surer  and  firmer.  In  the 
rear  the  column,  four  deep  and  well  in  hand,  thundered  after  the, 
advance.  Struggling  through  the  deep  water,  Elliott  gained  the 
bank  unscathed.  Then  the  fight  grew  desperate.  The  skirmishers 
were  driven  in  pell-mell,  the  ten  men  pressing  on  silently.  As  yet 
no  American  had  fired  a  pistol.  A  yell  arose  from  the  woods,  long, 
wild,  piercing — a  yell  that  had  exultation  and  murder  in  it.  WiMly 
shrill  and  defiant,  Shelby's  bugle  answered  it.  Then  the  woods  in 
a  moment  started  into  infernal  life.  Seven  hundred  muskets  flashed 
out  from  the  glpom.  A  powder  pall  enveloped  the  advance,  and 
when  the  smokj  lifted  Elliott  was  under  his  dead  horse,  badly 
wounded;  Cundiff 's  left  arm  was  dripping  blood;  Langhorne,  and 
Winship,  and  McDougall  were  down  and  bleeding;  Fell,  shot 
through  the  thigh,  still  kept  his  seat,  and  Wood,  his  left  wrist  dis- 
abled, pressed  on  with  the  bridle  in  his  teeth,  and  his  right  arm 
using  his  unerring  revolver.  Kirtley  and  Rudd  and  Chiles  and 
Has.  Woods  alone  of  the  ten  were  untouched,  and  they  stood  over 
their  falle  i  comrades,  fighting  desperately. 

The  terrible  volley  had  reached  the  column  in  the  river,  and  a 
dozen  saddles  were  emptied.  The  dead  the  falls  received;  the 
wounded  were  caught  up  by  their  comrades  and  saved  from  death  by 
drowning.  Shelby  pressed  right  onward.  At  intervals  the  stern 
notes  of  the  bugles  rang  out,  and  at  intervals  a  great  hearty  cheer 
came  from  the  ranks  of  the  Americans.  Some  horses  fell  in  the 
stream  never  to  rise  again,  for  the  bullets  plowed  up  the  column  and 
made  stark  work  on  every  side.  None  faltered.  Pouring  up  from 
the  river  as  a  great  tide  the  men  galloped  into  line  on  the  right  and 
left  of  the  road  and  waited  under  fire  until  the  last  man  had  made 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  277 

his  landing  sure.  The  Englishman  rode  by  Shelby's  side,  a  battle- 
light  on  his  fair  face — a  face  that  was,  alas!  too  soon  to  be  wan  and 
gray  and  drawn  with  agony. 

The  attack  was  a  hurricane.  Thereafter  no  man  knew  how  the 
killing  went  on.  The  battle  was  a  massacre.  The  Mexicans  first 
broke,  and  after  them  the  Indians.  No  quarter  was  shown. 
"Kill,"  "kill,"  resounded  from  the  woods,  and  the  roar  of  the 
revolver  volleys  told  how  the  Americans  were  at  work.  The  English- 
man's horse  was  killed.  He  seized  another  and  mounted  it.  Fight- 
ing on  the  right  of  the  road,  he  went  ahead  even  of  his  commander, 
The  mania  of  battle  seemed  to  have  taken  possession  of  his  brain. 
A  musket  ball  shattered  his  left  leg  from  the  ankle  to  the  knee.  He 
turned  deadly  pale,  but  he  did  not  halt.  Fifty  paces  further,  and 
another  ball,  striking  him  fair  in  the  breast,  knocked  him  clear 
from  the  saddle.  This  time  he  did  not  rise.  The  blood  that  stained 
all  his  garments  crimson  was  his  life's  blood.  He  saw  death  creep- 
ing slowly  towards  him  with  outstretched  skeleton  hands,  and  he 
faced  him  with  a  smile.  The  rough,  bearded  men  took  him  up 
tenderly  and  bore  him  backward  to  the  river's  edge.  His  wounds 
were  dressed  and  a  soft  bed  of  blankets  made  for  him.  In  vain. 
Beyond  human  care  or  skill,  he  lay  in  the  full  glory  of  the  summer 
sunset,  waiting  for  something  he  had  tried  long  and  anxiously  to  gain. 

The  sounds  of  the  strife  died  away.  While  pursuit  was  worth 
victims,  the  pursuit  went  on — merciless,  vengeful,  unrelenting. 
The  dead  were  neither  counted  nor  buried.  Over  two  hundred  fell 
in  the  chapparal  and  died  there.  The  impenetrable  nature  of  the 
undergrowth  alone  saved  the  remainder  of  the  fugitives.  Hundreds 
abandoned  their  horses  and  threw  away  their  guns.  Not  a  prisoner 
remained  to  tell  of  the  ambush  or  the  number  of  the  foe.  The  vic- 
tory was  dearly  bought,  however.  Thirty-seven  wounded  on  the 
part  of  Shelby  needed  care;  nineteen  of  his  dead  were  buried  be- 
fore the  sun  went  down;  and  eight  the  waters  of  the  river  closed 
over  until  the  judgment  day. 

An  hour  before  sunset  the  Englishman  was  still  alive. 

"  Would  you  have  a  priest?"  Shelby  asked  him,  as  he  bent  low 
over  the  wounded  man,  great  marks  of  pain  on  his  fair,  stern  face. 

"  None.  No  word  nor  prayer  can  avail  me  now.  I  shall  die  as 
I  have  lived." 

"  Is  there  any  message  you  would  leave  behind?  Any  token  to 
those  who  may  watch  and  wait  long  for  your  coming?  Any  fare- 
well to  those  beyond  the  sea,  who  know  and  love  you?" 

His  eyes  softened  just  a  little,  and  the  old  hunted  look  died  out 
from  his  features. 

"  Who  among  you  speaks  French?"  he  asked. 

"  Governor  Reynolds,"  was  the  reply. 

"  Send  him  to  me,  please." 


278  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

It  was  done.  Governor  Reynolds  came  to  the  man's  bedside, 
and  with  him  a  crowd  of  soldiers.  He  motioned  them  away.  His 
last  words  on  earth  were  for  the  ears  of  one  man  alone,  and  this  is 
his  confession,  a  free  translation  of  which  was  given  the  author  by 
Governor  Reynolds,  the  original  being  placed  in  the  hands  of  the 
British  Minister  in  Mexico,  Sir  James  Scarlett: 

"'I  was  the  youngest  son  of  an  English  Baron,  born,  perhaps,  to 
bad  luck,  and  certainly  to  ideas  of  life  that  were  crude  and  unsatis- 
factory. The  army  was  opened  to  me,  and  I  entered  it.  A  lieuten- 
ant at  twenty-two  in  the  Fourth  Royals,  I  had  but  one  ambition, 
that  to  rise  in  my  profession  and  take  rank  among  the  great  soldiers 
of  the  nation.  I  studied  hard,  and  soon  mastered  the  intricacies  of 
the  art,  but  promotion  was  not  easy,  and  there  was  no  war. 

"In  barracks  the  life  is  an  idle  one  with  the  officers,  and  at  times 
they  grow  impatient  and  fit  for  much  that  is  reprehensible  and 
unsoldierly.  We  were  quartered  at  Tyrone,  in  Ireland,  where  a 
young  girl  lived  who  was  faultlessly  fair  and  beautiful.  She  was 
the  toast  of  the  regiment.  Other  officers  older  and  colder  than 
myself  admired  her  and  flattered  her;  I  praised  her  and  worshiped 
her.  Perhaps  it  was  an  infatuation ;  to  me  at  least  it  was  immor- 
tality and  religion. 

"One  day,  I  remember  it  yet,  for  men  are  apt  to  remember  those 
thing  which  change  the  whole  current  of  the  blood,  I  sought  her  out 
and  told  her  of  my  love.  Whether  at  my  vehemence  or  my  desper- 
ation, I  know  not,  but  she  turned  pale  and  would  have  left  me  with- 
out an  answer.  The  suspense  was  unbearable,  and  I  pressed  the 
poor  thing  harder  and  harder.  At  last  she  turned  at  bay,  wild, 
tremulous,  and  declared  through  her  tears  that  she  did  not  and  could 
not  love  me.  The  rest  was  plain.  A  young  cornet  in  the  same  reg- 
iment, taller  by  a  head  than  I,  and  blonde  and  boyish,  had  baffled 
us  all,  and  had  taken  from  me,  what  in  my  bitter  selfishness,  I  could 
ni  t  see  that  I  never  had. 

"Maybe,  my  brain  has  not  been  always  clear.  Sometimes  I 
have  thought  that  a  cloud  would  come  between  the  past  and  present 
and  that  I  could  not  see  plainly  what  had  taken  place  in  all  the  desolate 
days  of  my  valueless  life.  Somtimes  I  have  prayed,  too.  I  believe 
even  the  devils  pray  no  matter  how  impious  or  useless  such  prayer 
may  be. 

"  I  need  not  detail  all  the  ways  a  baffled  lover  has  to  overthrow 
the  lover  who  is  successful.  I  pursued  the  cornet  with  insults  and 
bitter  words,  and  yet  l:e  avoided  me.  One  day  I  struck  him,  and 
such  was  the  indignation  exhibited  by  his  comrades,  that  he  no 
longer  considered.  A  challenge  followed  the  blow,  and  then  a  meet- 
ing. Good  people  say  that  the  devil  helps  his  own.  Caring  very 
little  for  God  or  devil,  I  fought  him  at  daylight  and  killed  him. 
Since  then  I  have  been  an  outcast  and  a  wanderer.  Tried  by  a 


AN  UXWlilTTSN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  279 

military  commission  and  disgraced  from  all  rank.  I  went  first  to 
India  and  sought  desperate  service  wherever  it  was  to  be  found. 
Wounded  often  and  scorched  by  fever,  I  could  not  die.  In  the 
Crimea  the  old,  hard  fortune  followed  me,  and  it  was  the  same 
struggle  with  bullets  that  always  gave  pain  without  pain's  antidote. 
No  rest  anywhere.  Perhaps  I  lived  the  life  that  was  in  me.  Who 
knows?  Let  him  who  is  guiltless  cast  the  first  stone.  There  is 
much  blood  upon  my  hands,  and  here  and  there  a  good  deed  that 
will  atone  a  little,  it  may  be,  in  the  end.  Of  my  life  in  America 
it  is  needless  to  talk.  Aimless,  objectless,  miserable,  I  am  here 
dying  to-day  as  a  man  dies  whof  has  neither  fear  nor  hope.  I  thank 
you  very  much  for  your  patience,  and  for  all  these  good  men  would 
have  done  for  me,  but  the  hour»has  come.  Good-bye." 

He  lifted  himself  up  and  turned  his  face  fair  to  the  west.  Some 
beams  of  the  setting  sun,  like  a  benediction,  rested  upon  the  long 
blonde  hair,  and  upon  the  white  set  lips,  drawn  now  and  gray  with 
agony.  No  man  spoke  in  all  the  rugged  band,  flushed  with  victory, 
and  weary  with  killing.  In  the  trees  a  little  breeze  lingered,  and 
bome  birds  flitted  and  sang,  though  far  apart. 

For  a  few  moments  the  Englishman  lay  as  one  asleep.  Sud- 
denly he  roused  himself  and  spoke: 

"  It  is  so  dreary  to  die  in  the  night.  One  likes  to  have  the  sun- 
light for  this." 

Governor  Keynolds  stooped  low  as  if  to  listen,  drew  back  and 
whispered  a  prayer.  The  man  was  dead ! 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

EVIL  tidings  have  wings  and  fly  as  a  bird.  Through  some  proc- 
ess, no  matter  what,  and  over  some  roads,  no  matter  where,  the 
news  was  carried  to  General  Jeanningros,  holding  outermpst  watch 
at  Monterey,  that  Shelby  had  sold  all  his  cannon  and  muskets,  all  his 
ammunition  and  war  supplies,  to  Governor  Biesca,  a  loyal  follower 
of  Benito  Juarez.  Staightway  the  Frenchman  flew  into  a  passion 
and  made  some  vows  that  were  illy  kept. 

"Let  me  but  get  my  hands  upon  these  Americans, "  he  said, 
"  these  canaille,  and  after  that  we  can  see." 

He  did  get  his  hands  upon  them,  but  in  lieu  of  the  sword  they 
bore  the  olive  branch. 

The  march  into  the  interior  from  the  Salinas  river  was  slow  and 
toilsome.  Very  weak  and  sore,  the  wounded  had  to  be  waited  for 
and  tenderly  carried  along.  To  leave  them  would  have  been  to 
murder  them,  for  all  the  country  was  up  in  arms,  seeking  for  some 
advantage  which  never  came  to  gain  the  mastery  over  the  Americans. 
At  night  and  from  afar,  the  outlying  guerrillas  would  make  great 
show  of  attack,  discharging  platoons  of  musketry  at  intervals,  and 
charging  upon  the  picquets  at  intervals,  but  never  coming  seriously 
to  blows.  This  kind  of  warfare,  however,  while  it  was  not  danger- 
ous, was  annoying.  It  interfered  with  the  sleep  of  the  soldiers  and 
kept  them  constantly  on  the  alert.  They  grew  sullen  in  some  in- 
stances and  threatened  reprisals.  Shelby's  unceasing  vigilance 
detected  the  plot  before  it  had  culminated,  and  one  morning  before 
reaching  Lampasas,  he  ordered  the  column  under  arms  that  he 
might  talk  to  the  men. 

"  There  are  some  signs  among  you  of  bad  discipline, "he  said, 
"  and  I  have  called  you  out  that  you  may  be  told  of  it.  What  have 
you  to  complain  about?  Those  who  follow  on  your  track  to  kill 
you  ?  Very  well,  complain  of  them  if  you  choose,  and  fight  them 
to  your  heart's  content,  but  lift  not  a  single  hand  against  the  Mexi- 
cans who  are  at  hotae  and  the  non-combatants.  We  are  invaders, 
it  is  true  but  we  are  not  murderers.  Those  who  follow  me  are 
incapable  of  this;  those  who  are  not  shall  not  follow  me.  From 
this  moment  forward  I  regard  you  all  as  soldiers,  and  if  I  am  mis- 
taken  in  my  estimate,  and  if  amid  the  ranks  of  those  who  have 
obeyed  me  for  four  years  some  marauders  have  crept  in,  I  order  now 
that  upon  these  a  soldier's  work  be  done.  Watch  them  well.  He 
who  robs,  he  who  insults  women,  he  who  oppresses  the  unarmed 
and  the  aged,  is  an  outcast  to  all  the  good  fellowship  of  this  com- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  281 

mand  and  shall  be  driven  forth  as  an  enemy  to  us  all.      Hereafter 
be  as  you  have  ever  been,  brave  true  and  honorable." 

There  was  no  longer  any  more  mutiny.  The  less  disciplined 
felt  the  moral  pressure  of  their  comrades  and  bthuvtd  theiLselves. 
The  more  unscrupulous  set  the  Mexicans  on  one  side  and  the  Ameri- 
cans on  the  other,  and  elected  to  nn.ain  peaceably  in  tie  ranks 
•which  alone  could  shelter  and  protect  tliem.  The  marches  became 
shorter  and  the  bivouacs  less  pleasant  ai  d  agrt tulle.  Althcugh  it 
was  not  yet  time  for  the  rainy  seascr,  Hue  lair  fell  in  tie  more 
elevated  mountain  ranges,  and  some  (hijliig  nigl  1s  made  comfoit 
impossible.  Now  and  then  some  days  of  camping,  too,  were 
requisite  —  days  in  which  arms  were  cltaitd  aid  innumtion 
inspected  jealously.  The  American  horses  v  (  u  undergoing  accli- 
matization, and  in  the  inevitable  fevtr  which  develops  ifetlf  the 
affectionate  cavalryman  sits  by  his  hcise  right  and  dt»y  until  the 
crisis  is  passed.  Well  nursed,  this  fever  is  not  dangerous.  At  the 
crisis,  however,  woe  to  the  steed  who  loses  his  blanket,  and  woe  to 
the  rider  who  sleeps  while  the  cold  nigLt  air  is  driving  in  death 
through  every  pore.  Accordingly  as  tie  perspiration  is  checked 
or  encouraged  is  the  balance  for  or  agairst  the  life  of  the  iicrse. 
There  horses  were  gold,  and  hence  the  almcst  paternal  solicitude. 

Dr.  John  S.  Tisdale,  the  lord  of  many  patients  and  pill-boxes 
to-day  in  Platte,  was  the  veterinary  surgeon,  and  from  the  healer 
of  men  he  had  become  to  be  the  healer  of  horses.  Shaggy-headed 
and  wide  of  forehead  in  the  regions  of  ideality,  he  had  a  new  name 
for  every  disease,  and  a  new  remedy  for  every  symptom.  An 
excellent  appetite  had  given  him  a  hearty  laugh.  During  all  the 
long  night  watches  he  moved  about  as  a  Samaritan,  his  kindly  face 
set  in  its  frame- work  of  gray — his  fifty  years  resting  as  lightly  upon 
him  as  the  night  air  upon  the  mountains  of  San  Juan  de  Aguilar. 
He  prayeth  well  who  smoketh  well,  and  the  good  Doctor's  suppli- 
cations went  up  all  true  and  rugged  many  a  time  from  his  ancient 
pipe  when  the  hoar  frosts  fell  and  deep  sleep  came  down  upon  the 
camp  as  a  silent  angel  to  scatter  sweet  dreams  of  home  and  native 
land. 

Good  nursing  triumphed.  The  crisis  of  the  climate  passed 
away,  and  from  the  last  tedious  camp  the  column  moved  rapidly  on 
toward  Lampasas.  Dangers  thickened.  Content  to  keep  the 
guerrillas  at  bay,  Shelby  had  permitted  no  scouting  parties  and 
forbidden  all  pursuit. 

"  Let  them  alone,"  he  would  say  to  those  eager  for  adventure, 
"  and  husband  your  strength.  In  a  land  of  probable  giants  we  have 
no  need  to  hunt  possible  chimeras." 

These  guerrillas,  however,  became  emboldened.  On  the  trail 
of  a  timid  or  wounded  thing  they  are  veritable  wolves.  Their  long 
gallop  can  never  tire.  In  the  night  they  are  superb.  Upon  the 


282  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

flanks,  in  the  front  or  rear,  it  is  one  eternal  ambush — one  incessant 
rattle  of  musketry  which  harms  nothing,  but  which  yet  annoys  like 
the  singing  of  mosquitos.  At  last  they  brought  about  a  swift  rec- 
oning — one  of  those  sudden  things  which  leave  little  behind  save  a 
trail  of  blood  and  a  moment  of  savage  killing. 

The  column  had  reached  to  within  two  day's  journey  of  Lam- 
pasas.  Some  spurs  of  the  mountain  ran  down  to  the  road,  and  some 
clusters  of  palm  trees  grouped  themselves  at  intervals  by  the  way- 
side. The  palm  is  a  pensive  tree,  having  a  voice  in  the  wind  that 
is  sadder  than  the  pine — a  sober,  solemn  voice,  a  voice  like  the 
sound  of  ruffled  cerements  when  the  corpse  is  given  to  the  coffin. 
Even  in  the  sunlight  they  are  dark ;  even  in  the  tropics  no  vine 
clings  to  them,  no  blossom  is  born  to  .them,  no  bird  is  housed  by 
them,  and  no  flutter  of  wings  makes  music  for  them.  Strange  and 
shapely,  and  coldly  chaste,  they  seem  like  human  and  desolate 
things,  standing  all  alone  in  the  midst  of  luxurious  nature,  un- 
blessed of  the  soil,  and  unloved  of  the  dew  and  the  sunshine. 

In  a  grove  of  these  the  column  halted  for  the  night.  Beyond 
them  was  a  pass  guarded  by  crosses.  In  that  treacherous  land  these 
are  a  growth  indigenous  to  the  soil.  They  flourish  rowhere  else  in 
such  abundance.  Wherever  a  deed  of  violence  is  done,  a  cross  is 
planted;  wherever  a  traveler  is  left  upon  his  face  in  a  pool  of  blood, 
a  cross  is  reared;  wherever  a  grave  is  made  wherein  lies  the 
murdered  one,  there  is  seen  a  cross.  No  matter  who  does  the  deed 
— whether  Indian,  or  don,  or  commandante,  a  cross  must  mark  the 
spot,  and  as  the  pious  wayfarer  journeys  by  he  lays  all  reverently  a 
stone  at  the  feet  of  the  sacred  symbol,  breathing  a  pious  prayer  and 
telling  a  bead  or  two  for  the  soul's  salvation. 

On  the  left  a  wooded  bluff  ran  down  abruptly  to  a  stream. 
Beyond  the  stream  and  near  the  palms,  a  grassy  bottom  spread  itself 
out,  soft  and  grateful.  Here  the  blankets  were  spread,  and  here  the 
horses  grazed  their  fill.  A  young  moon,  clear  and  white,  hung  low 
in  the  west,  not  sullen  nor  red,  but  a  tender  moon  full  of  the  beams 
that  lovers  seek,  and  full  of  the  voiceless  imagery  which  gives  pas- 
sion to  the  songs  of  the  night,  and  pathos  to  deserted  and  dejected 
swains. 

As  the  moon  set  the  horses  were  gathered  together  and  tethered 
in  amid  the  palms.  Then  a  deep  silence  fell  upon  the  camp,  for  the 
sentinels  were  beyond  its  confines,  and  all  withinside  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  tired  and  healthy. 

It  may  have  been  midnight;  it  certainly  was  cold  and  dark.  The 
fires  had  gone  out,  and  there  was  a  white  mist  like  a  shroud  creep- 
ing up  the  stream  and  settling  upon  the  faces  of  the  sleepers.  On 
the  far  right  a  single  pistol  shot  arose,  clear  and  resonant.  Shelby, 
who  slumbered  like  a  night  bird,  lifted  himself  up  from  his  blank- 
ets and  spoke  in  an  undertone  to  Thrailkill: 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  283 

"  Who  has  the  post  at  the  mouth  of  the  pass?  " 

"Jo.  Macey." 

"  Then  something  is  stirring.  Macey  never  fired  at  a  shadow  in 
his  life." 

The  two  men  listened.  One  a  grim  guerrilla  himself,  with  the 
physique  of  a  Cossack  and  the  hearing  of  a  Comanche.  The  other 
having  in  his  hands  the  lives  of  all  the  silent  and  inert  sleepers 
lying  still  and  grotesque  under  the  white  shroud  of  the  mountain  mist. 

Nothing  was  heard  for  an  hour.  *  The  two  men  went  to  sleep 
again,  but  not  to  dream.  Of  a  sudden  and  unseen  the  mist  was 
lifted,  and  in  its  place  a  sheet  of  flame  so  near  to  the  faces  of  the 
men  that  it  might  have  scorched  them.  Two  hundred  Mexicans 
had  crept  down  the  mountain,  and  to  the  edge  of  the  stream,  and 
had  fired  point  blank  into  the  camp.  It  seemed  a  miracle,  but  not 
a  man  was  touched.  Lying  flat  upon  the  ground  and  wrapped  up 
in  their  blankets,  the  whole  volley,  meant  to  be  murderous,  had 
swept  over  them. 

Shelby  was  the  first  upon  his  feet.  His  voice  rang  out  clear  and 
faultless,  and  without  a  tremor: 

•' '  Give  them  the  revolver.    Charge !  " 

Men  awakened  from  deep  sleep  grapple  with  spectres  slowly. 
These  Mexicans  were  spectres.  Beyond  the  stream  and  in  amid  the 
sombre  shadows  of  the  palms,  they  were  invisible.  Only  the  pow- 
der-pall was  on  the  water  where  the  mist  had  been. 

Unclad,  barefooted,  heavy  with  sleep,  the  men  went  straight  for 
the  mountain,  a  revolver  in  each  hand,  Shelby  leading.  From  spec- 
tres the  Mexicans  had  become  to  be  bandits.  No  quarter  was  given 
or  asked.  The  rush  lasted  until  the  game  was  flushed,  the  pursuit 
until  the  top  of  the  mountain  was  gained.  Over  ragged  rock  and 
cactus  and  dagger-trees  the  hurricane  poured.  The  roar  of  the 
revolvers  was  deafening.  Men  died  and  made  no  moan,  and  the 
wounded  were  recognized  only  by  their  voices.  "When  it  was  over 
the  Americans  had  lost  in  killed  eleven  and  in  wounded  seventeen, 
most  of  the  latter  slightly,  thanks  to  the  darkness  and  the  impetu- 
osity of  the  attack.  In  crawling  upon  the  camp  the  Mexicans  had 
tethered  their  horses  upon  the  further  side  of  the  mountain.  The 
most  of  these  fell  into  Shelby's  hands,  together  with  the  bodies  of 
the  two  leaders,  Juan  Anselmo,  a  renegade  priest,  and  Antonio 
Flores,  a  young  Cuban  who  had  sold  his  sister  to  a  wealthy  Jiacien- 
daro  and  turned  robber,  and  sixty-nine  of  their  followers. 

It  was  noon  the  next  day  before  the  march  was  resumed — noon 
with  the  sun  shining  upon  the  fresh  graves  of  eleven  dauntless 
Americans  sleeping  their  last  sleep,  amid  the  palms  and  the  crosses, 
until  the  resurrection  day. 

There  was  a  grand  fandango  at  Lampasas  when  the  column 
reached  the  city.  The  bronzed,  foreign  faces  of  the  strangers 


284  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

attracted  much  of  curiosity  and  more  of  comment;  but  no  notes  in 
the  music  jarred,  no  halt  in  the  flying  feet  of  the  dancers  could  be 
discovered.  Shelby  camped  just  beyond  the  suburbs,  unwilling  to 
tiust  his  men  to  the  blandishments  of  so  much  beauty,  and  to  the 
perils  of  so  much  nakedness. 

Stern  camp  guards  soon  sentinelled  the  soldiers,  but  as  the  night 
deepened  their  devices  increased,  until  a  good  company  had  escaped 
all  vigilance  and  made  a  refuge  sure  with  the  sweet  and  swarthy 
senoritas  singing : 

"  O  ven !  ama ! 
Eres  alma. 
Soy  corazon." 

There  were  three  men  who  stole  out  together  in  mere  wantonness 
and  exuberance  of  life— obedient,  soldierly  men — who  were  to 
bring  back  with  them  a  tragedy  without  a  counterpart  in  all  their 
history.  None  saw  Boswell,  Walker  and  Crockett  depart — the 
whole  command  saw  them  return  again,  Boswell  slashed  from  chin 
to  waist,  Walker  almost  dumb  from  a  bullet  through  cheeks  and 
tongue,  and  Crockett,  solber  and  unhurt,  yet  having  over  him  the 
somber  light  of  as  wild  a  deed  as  any  that  stands  out  from  all  the 
lawless  past  of  that  lawless  land. 

Tli^se  men,  when  reaching  Lampases,  floated  into  the  flood  tide 
of  the  fandango,  and  danced  until  the  red  lights  shone  with  an 
unnatural  brilliancy — until  the  fiery  Catalan  consumed  what  little 
of  discretion  the  dancing  had  left.  They  sallied  out  late  at  night, 
flashed  with  drink,  and  having  over  them  the  glamour  of  enchant- 
ing women.  They  walked  on  apace  in  the  direction  of  the  camp, 
singing  snatches  of  Bacchanal  songs,  and  laughing  boisterously 
under  the  moonlight  which  flooded  all  the  streets  with  gold.  In 
the  doorway  of  a  house  a  young  Mexican  girl  stood,  her  dark  face 
looking  out  coquettishly  from  her  fringe  of  dark  hair.  The  men 
spoke  to  her,  and  she,  in  her  simple,  girlish  fashion,  spoke  to  the 
men.  In  Mexico  this  meant  nothing.  They  halted,  however,  and 
Crockett  advanced  from  the  rest  and  laid  his  hand  upon  the  girl's 
shoulder.  Around  her  head  and  shoulders  she  wore  a  rebosa.  This 
garment  answers  at  the  same  time  for  bonnet  and  bodice.  When 
removed  the  head  is  uncovered  and  the  bosom  is  exposed.  Crock- 
ett meant  no  real  harm,  although  he  asked  her  for  a  kiss.  Before 
she  had  replied  to  him,  he  attempted  to  take  it. 

The  hot  Southern  blood  flared  up  all  of  a  sudden  at  this,  and 
her  dark  eyes  grew  furious  in  a  moment.  As  she  drew  back  from 
him  in  proud  scorn,  the  rebosa  came  off,  leaving  all  her  bosom  bare, 
the  long,  luxuriant  hair  falling  down  upon  and  over  it  as  a  cloud 
that  would  hide  its  purity  and  innocence.  Then  she  uttered  a  low, 
feminine  cry  as  a  signal,  followed  instantly  by  a  rush  of  men  who 
drew  knives  and  pistols  as  they  came  on.  The  Americans  had  no 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  285 

weapons.  Not  dreaming  uf  danger,  and  being  within  sight  almost 
of  camp,  they  had  left  their  revolvers  behind.  Boswell  was  stabbed 
three  times,  though  not  seriously,  for  he  was  a  powerful  man,  and 
fought  his  assailants  off.  Walker  was  shot  through  his  tongue  and 
both  cheeks,  and  Crockett,  the  cause  of  the  whole  melee,  escaped 
unhurt.  No  pursuit  was  attempted  after  the  first  swift  work  was 
over.  Wary  of  reprisals,  the  Mexicans  hid  themselves  as  suddenly 
as  they  had  sallied  out.  There  was  a  young  man,  however,  who 
walked  close  to  Crockett — a  young  Mexican  who  spoke  no  word, 
and  who  yet  kept  pace  with  the  American  step  by  step.  At  first  he 
was  not  noticed.  Before  the  camp  guards  were  reached  Crockett, 
now  completely  sobered,  turned  upon  him  and  asked: 

"Why  do  you  follow  me?" 

"That  you  may  lead  me  to  your  General." 

"What  do  you  wish  with  my  General?" 

"Satisfaction." 

At  the  firing  in  the  city  a  patrol  guard  had  been  thrown  out  who 
arrested  the  whole  party  and  carried  it  straight  to  Shelby.  He  was 
encamped  upon  a  wide  margin  of  bottom  land,  having  a  river  upon 
one  side,  and  some  low  mountain  ridges  upon  the  other.  The 
ground  where  the  blankets  were  spread  was  velvety  with  grass.  There 
was  a  bright  moon ;  the  air  blowing  from  the  grape  gardens  and  the 
apricot  orchards  of  Lampasa  was  fragrant  and  delicious,  and  the 
soldiers  were  not  sleeping. 

Under  the  solace  of  such  surroundings  Shelby  had  relaxed  a  little 
of  that  grim  severity  he  always  manifested  toward  those  guilty  of 
unsoldierly  conduct,  and  spoke  not  harshly  to  the  three  men.  When 
made  acquainted  with  their  hurts,  he  dismissed  them  instantly  to  the 
care  of  Dr.  Tisdale. 

Crockett  and  the  Mexican  still  lingered,  and  a  crowd  of  some  fifty 
or  sixty  had  gathered  around.  The  first  told  his  story  of  the  melee,  and 
told  it  truthfully.  The  man  was  too  brave  to  lie.  As  an  Indian  list- 
ening to  the  approaching  footsteps  of  one  whom  he  itends  to  scalp, 
the  young  Mexican  listened  as  a  granite  pillar  vitalized  to  the  whole 
recital.  When  it  was  finished  he  went  up  close  to  Shelby,  and  said 
to  him,  pointing  his  finger  at  Crockett : 

"That  man  has  outraged  my  sister.  I  could  have  killed  him, 
but  I  did  not.  You  Americans  are  brave,  I  know;  will  you  be  gen- 
erous as  well,  and  give  me  satisfaction?  " 

Shelby  looked  at  Crockett,  whose  bronzed  face,  made  sterner  in 
the  moonlight,  had  upon  it  a  look  of  curiosity.  He  at  least  did  not 
understand  what  was  coming. 

"Does  the  Mexican  speak  truth,  Crockett?"  was  the  question 
asked  by  the  commander  of  his  soldier. 

"  Partly;  but  I  meant  no  harm  to  the  woman.  I  am  incapable  of 
that.  Drunk  I  know  I  was,  and  reckless,  but  not  willfully  guilty, 
General." 


I 
286  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Shelby  regarded  him  coldly.  His  voice  was  so  stern  when  he 
spoke  again  that  the  brave  soldier  hung  his  head  : 

' '  What  business  had  you  to  lay  your  hands  upon  her  at  all  ?  How 
often  must  I  repeat  to  you  that  the  man  who  does  these  things  is  no 
follower  of  mine?  Will  you  give  her  brother  satisfaction?" 

He  drew  his  revolver  almost  joyfully  and  stood  proudly  up, 
facing  his  accuser. 

"  No!  no!  not  the  pistol! "  cried  the  Mexican;  "  I  do  not  under- 
stand the  pistol.  The  knife,  Senor  General;  is  the  American  afraid 
of  the  knife?" 

He  displayed,  as  he  spoke,  a  keen,  glittering  knife  and  held  it 
up  in  the  moonlight.  It  was  white,  and  lithe,  and  shone  in  con- 
trast with  the  dusky  hand  which  grasped  it. 

Not  a  muscle  of  Crockett's  face  moved.  He  spoke  almost  gently 
as  he  turned  to  his  General: 

"The  knife,  ah!  well,  so  be  it.  Will  some  of  you  give  me  a 
knife?" 

A  knife  was  handed  him  and  a  ring  was  made.  About  four 
hundred  soldiers  formed  the  outside  circle  of  this  ring.  These, 
bearing  torches  in  their  hands,  cast  a  red  glare  of  light  upon  the 
arena.  The  ground  under  foot  was  as  velvet.  The  moon,  not  yet 
full,  and  the  sky  without  a  cloud,  rose  over  all,  calm  and  peaceful 
in  the  summer  night.  A  hush,  as  of  expectancy,  fell  upon  the  camp. 
Those  who  were  asleep,  slept  on;  those  who  were  awake  seemed  as 
under  the  influence  of  an  intangible  dream. 

Shelby  did  not  forbid  the  fight.  He  knew  it  was  a  duel  to  the 
death,  and  some  of  the  desperate  spirit  of  the  combatants  passed 
into  his  own.  He  merely  spoke  to  an  aide: 

"  Go  for  Tisdale.  When  the  steel  has  finished  the  surgeon  may 
begin." 

Both  men  stepped  fearlessly  into  the  arena.  A  third  form  was 
there,  unseen,  invisible,  and  even  in  Ms  presence  the  traits  of  the  two 
nations  were  uppermost.  The  Mexican  made  the  sign  of  the  cross, 
the  American  tightened  his  sabre  belt.  Both  may  have  prayed, 
neither,  however,  audibly. 

They  had  no  seconds;  perhaps  none  were  needed.  The  Mexican 
took  his  stand  about  midway  the  arena  and  waited.  Crockett 
grasped  his  knife  firmly  and  advanced  upon  him.  Of  the  two,  he 
was  the  taller  by  a  head  and  physically  the  strongest.  Constant 
familiarity  with  danger  for  four  years  had  given  him  a  confidence 
the  Mexican  may  not  have  felt.  He  had  been  wounded  three 
times,  one  of  which  wounds  was  scarcely  healed.  This  took  none 
of  his  manhood  from  him,  however. 

Neither  spoke.  The  torches  flared  a  little  in  the  night  wind, 
now  beginning  to  rise,  and  the  long  grass  rustled  curtly  under  foot. 
Afterward  its  green  had  become  crimson. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  287 

Between  them  some  twelve  inches  of  space  now  intervened.  The 
men  had  fallen  back  upon  the  right  and  the  left  for  their  commander 
to  see,  and  he  stood  looking  fixedly  at  the  two  as  he  would  upon  a 
line  of  battle.  Never  before  had  he  gazed  upon  so  strange  a  sight. 
That  great  circle  of  bronzed  faces,  eager  and  fierce  in  the  flare  of 
torches,  had  something  monstrous  yet  grotesque  about  it.  The 
civilization  of  the  century  had  been  rolled  back,  and  they  were  in  a 
Roman  circus,  looking  down  upon  the  arena,  crowded  with  gladia- 
tors and  jubilant  with  that  strangest  of  war-cries  :  Morituri  te 
talutant ! 

The  attack  was  the  lightning's  flash.  The  Mexican  lowered  his 
head,  set  his  teeth  hard,  and  struck  fairly  at  Crockett's  breast.  The 
American  made  a  half  face  to  the  right,  threw  his  left  arm  forward 
as  a  shield,  gathered  the  deadly  steel  in  his  shoulder  to, the  hilt  and 
struck  home.  How  pitiful ! 

A  great  stream  of  blood  spurted  in  his  face.  The  tense  form  of 
the  Mexican  bent  as  a  willow  wand  in  the  wind,  swayed  helplessly, 
and  fell  backward  lifeless,  the  knife  rising  up  as  a  terrible  protest 
above  the  corpse.  The  man's  heart  was  found. 

Cover  him  up  from  sight.  No  need  of  Dr.  Tisdale  here. 
There  was  a  wail  of  women  on  the  still  night  air,  a  shudder  of 
regret  among  the  soldiers,  a  dead  man  on  the  grass,  a  sister  broken- 
hearted and  alone  for  evermore,  and  a  freed  spirit  somewhere  out  in 
eternity  with  the  unknown  and  the  infinite. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

GENERAL  JEANNINGROS  held  Monterey  with  a  garrison  of  five 
thousand  French  and  Mexican  soldiers.  Among  them  -was  the  For. 
eign  Legion — composed  of  Americans,  English,  Irish,  Arabs,  Turks, 
Germans  and  Negroes — and  the  Third  French  Zouaves,  aregimtnt 
unsurpassed  for  courage  and  discipline  in  any  army  in  any  nation  on 
earth.  This  regiment  afterward  literally  passed  away  from  service  at 
Gravelotte.  Like  the  old  Guard  at  Waterloo,  it  was  destroyed. 

Jeanningros  was  a  soldier  who  spoke  English,  who  had  gray 
hair,  who  drank  absinthe,  who  had  been  in  the  army  thirty  years, 
who  had  been  wounded  thirteen  times,  and  who  was  only  a  general 
of  brigade.  His  discipline  was  all  iron.  Those  who  transgressed, 
those  who  were  found  guilty  at  night  were  shot  in  the  morning. 
He  never  spared  what  the  court  martial  had  condemned.  There 
was  a  ghastly  dead  wall  in  Monterey,  isolated,  lonesome,  forbidding 
terrible,  which  had  seen  many  a  stalwart  form  shudder  and  fall, 
many  a  young,  fresh,  dauntless  face  go  down  stricken  in  the  hush 
of  the  morning.  The  face  of  this  wall,  covered  all  over  with  warts, 
with  excrescences,  with  scars,  had  about  it  a  horrible  small-pox. 
Where  the  bullets  had  plowed  it  up  were  the  traces  of  the  pustules. 
The  splashes  of  blood  left  by  the  slaughter  dried  there.  In  the  sun- 
light these  shone  as  sinister  blushes  upon  the  countenance  of  that 
stony  and  inanimate  thing,  peering  out  from  an  inexorable  ambush 
— waiting. 

Speaking  no  word  for  the  American,  and  setting  down  naught 
to  the  credit  side  of  his  necessities  or  his  surroundings,  those  who 
had  brought  news  to  Jeanningros  of  Shelby's  operations  at  Piedras 
Negras  had  told  him  as  well  of  the  cannon  sold  as  of  the  arms  and 
ammunition.  Jeanningros  had  waited  patiently  and  had  replied 
to  them: 

"  Wait  awhile.    We  must  catch  them  before  we  hang  them." 

While  he  was  waiting  to  lay  hands  upon  them,  Shelby  had 
marched  to  within  a  mile  of  the  French  outposts  at  Monterey.  He 
came  as  a  soldier,  and  he  meant  to  do  a  soldier's  work.  Pickets  were 
thrown  forward,  the  horses  were  fed,  and  Governor  Reynolds  put  in 
most  excellent  French  this  manner  of  a  note: 

GENERAL  JEANNINGROS,  Commander  at  Monterey.— General:  I  have  the 
honor  to  report  that  I  am  within  one  mile  of  your  fortifications  with  my 
command.  Preferring  exile  to  surrender,  I  have  left  my  own  country  to 
seek  service  in  that  held  by  His  Imperial  Majesty,  the  Emperor  Maximilian. 
Shall  it  be  peace  or  war  between  us?  If  the  former,  and  with  your  per- 
mission, I  shall  enter  your  lines  at  once,  claiming  at  your  hands  that  courtesy- 
due  from  one  soldier  to  another.  If  the  latter,  I  propose  to  attack  you 
immediately.  Very  respectfully,  yours, 

Jo.  O .  SHELBY. 
288 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  289 

Improvising  a  flag  of  truce,  two  fearless  soldiers,  John  Tlirail- 
skill  and  Rainy  McKinney,  bore  it  boldly  into  the  public  square  at 
Monterey.  This  nag  was  an  apparition.  The  long  roll  was  beaten, 
the  garrison  stood  to  their  arms,  mounted  orderlies  galloped  hither 
and  thither,  and  Jeanningros  himself,  used  all  his  life  to  surprises, 
was  attracted  by  the  soldierly  daring  of  the  deed.  He  received  the 
•message  and  answered  it  favorably,  remarking  to  Thrailkill,  as  he 
handed  him  the  reply: 

"Tell  your  general  to  march  in  immediately.  He  is  the  only 
soldier  that  has  yet  come  out  of  Yankeedom." 

Jeanningros'  reception  was  as  frank  and  open  as  his  speech. 
That  night,  after  assigning  quarters  to  the  men,  he  gave  a  banquet 
to  the  officers.  Among  those  present  were  General  Magruder,  Ex- 
Senator  Trusten  Polk,  Ex-Governor  Thomas  C.  Reynolds,  General 
T.  C.  Hindman,  General  E.  Kirby  Smith,  General  John  B.  Clark, 
General  Shelby,  and  many  others  fond  of  talk,  wine  and  adventure. 
Jeanningros  was  a  superb  host.  His  conversation  never  tired  of  the 
Crimea,  of  Napoleon  III.'s  coup  d'etat,  of  the  Italian  campaign,  of 
the  march  to  Pekin,  of  Algeria,  of  all  the  great  soldiers  he  had 
iknown,  and  of  all  the  great  campaigns  he  had  participated  in.  The 
•civil  war  in  America  was  discussed  in  all  of  its  vivid  and  somber 
slights,  and  no  little  discussion  carried  on  as  to  the  probable  effect 
peace  would  have  upon  Maximilian's  occupation  of  Mexico.  Jean- 
ningros was  emphatic  in  all  of  his  declarations.  In  reply  to  a  ques- 
tion asked  by  Shelby  concerning  the  statesmanship  of  the  Mexican 
Emperor,  the  French  General  replied: 

"Ah!  the  Austrian;  you  should  see  him  to  understand  him. 
More  of  a  scholar  than  a  king,  good  at  botany,  a  poet  on  occasions, 
a  traveler  who  gathers  curiosities  and  writes  books,  a  saint  over  his 
wine  and  a  sinner  among  his  cigars,  in  love  with  his  wife,  believing 
more  in  manifest  destiny  than  drilled  battalions,  good  Spaniard  in 
all  but  deceit  and  treachery,  honest,  earnest,  tender-hearted  and 
sincere,  his  faith  is  too  strong  in  the  liars  who  surround  him,  and  his 
soul  is  too  pure  for  the  deeds  that  must  be  done.  He  can  not  kill  as 
we  Frenchmen  do.  He  knows  nothing  of  diplomacy.  In  a  nation 
of  thieves  and  cut-throats,  he  goes  devoutly  to  mass,  endows  hos- 
pitals, laughs  a  good  man's  laugh  at  the  praises  of  the  blanketed 
rabble,  says  his  prayers  and  sleeps  the  sleep  of  the  gentleman  and 
the  prince.  Bah!  his  days  are  numbered;  nor  can  all  the  power  of 
France  keep  his  crown  upon  his  head,  if,  indeed,  it  can  keep  that 
iiead  upon  his  shoulders." 

The  blunt  soldier  checked  himself  suddenly.  The  man  had 
spoken  over  his  wine;  the  courtier  never  speaks. 

"  Has  he  the  confidence  of  Bazaine?"  asked  General  Clark. 

Jeanningros  gave  one  of  those  untranslatable  shrugs  which  are  a 
volume,  and  drained  his  goblet  before  replying. 


290  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

"The  Marshal,  you  mean.  Oh!  the  Marshal  keeps  his  own 
secrets.  Besides  I  have  not  seen  the  Marshal  since  coming  north- 
ward. Do  you  go  further,  General  Clark  ?" 

The  diplomatist  had  met  the  diplomatist.  Both  smiled;  neither 
referred  to  the  subject  again. 

Daylight  shone  in  through  the  closed  shutters  before  the  party 
separated — the  Americans  to  sleep,  the  Frenchman  to  sign  a  death 
warrant. 

A  young  lieutenant  of  the  Foreign  Legion,  crazed  by  that  most 
damnable  of  drinks,  absinthe,  had  deserted  from  outpost  duty  in  a 
moment  of  temporary  insanity.  For  three  days  he  wandered  about, 
taking  no  note  of  men  or  things,  helpless  and  imbecile.  On  the 
morning  of  the  fourth  day  his  reason  was  given  back  to  him.  None 
knew  better  than  himself  the  nature  of  the  precipice  upon  which  he 
stood.  Before  him  lay  the  Rio  Grande,  the  succor  beyond  an 
asylum,  safety;  behind  him  the  court  martial,  the  sentence,  the  hor- 
rible wall,  splashed  breast  high  with  blood,  the  platoon,  the  leveled 
muskets — death.  He  never  faltered.  Returning  to  the  outpost  at 
Which  he  had  been  stationed,  he  saluted  its  officer  and  said: 

"Here I  am." 

"  Indeed.    And  who  are  you?  " 

"A  deserter." 

"  Ah!  but  Jeanningros  shoots  deserters.  Why  did  you  not  keep 
on,  since  you  had  started? " 

"  No  matter.    I  am  a  Frenchman  and  I  know  how  to  die." 

They  brought  him  in  while  Jeanningros  was  drinking  his  gener- 
ous wine,  and  holding  high  revelrywith  his  guests.  When  the 
morning  came  he  was  tried.  No  matter  for  anything  the  poor  young 
soldier  could  say,  and  he  said  but  little.  At  sunrise  upon  the  next 
morning  he  was  to  die. 

When  Jeanningros  awoke  late  in  the  afternoon  there  was  a  note 
for  him.  Its  contents,  in  substance,  was  as  follows: 

"  I  do  not  ask  for  my  life — only  for  the  means  of  disposing  of  it. 
I  have  an  old  mother  in  France  who  gave  me  to  the  country,  and  who 
blessed  me  as  she  said  good-bye.  Under  the  law,  General,  if  I  am 
shot,  my  property  goes  to  the  State;  if  I  shoot  myself  my  mother 
gets  it.  It  is  a  little  thing  a  soldier  asks  of  his  General,  who  has 
medals,  and  honors,  and,  maybe,  a  mother,  too — but  for  the  sake  of 
the  uniform  I  wore  at  Solf erino,  is  it  asking  more  than  you  can  grant 
when  I  ask  for  a  revolver  and  a  bottle  of  brandy?  " 

Through  his  sleepy,  half -shut  eyes  Jeanningros  read  the  message 
to  the  end.  When  he  had  finished  he  called  an  aide. 

"  Take  to  the  commandant  of  the  prison  this  order." 

The  order  was  for  the  pistol  and  the  brandy. 

That  afternoon  and  night  the  young  Lieutenant  wrote,  and  drank, 
and  made  his  peace  with  all  the  world.  What  laid  beyond  he  knew 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  291 

not,  nor  any  man  born  of  woman.  There  was  a  little  light  in  the 
east  and  a  little  brandy  in  the  bottle.  But  the  letters  had  all  been 
written,  and  the  poor  woman  in  France  would  get  her  just  due 
after  all. 

Turn  out  the  guard  ! 

For  what  end  ?  No  need  of  soldiers  there — rather  the  coffin, 
the  prayer  of  the  priest,  the  grave  that  God  blessed  though  by  man 
decreed  unhallowed.  French  to  the  last,  the  Lieutenant  had  waited 
for  the  daylight,  had  finished  his  bottle,  and  had  scattered  his 
brains  over  the  cold  walls  of  his  desolate  prison.  Jeanningros 
heard  the  particulars  duly  related,  and  had  dismissed  the  Adjutant 
with  an  epigram  : 

"Clever  fellow.    He  was  entitled  to  two  bottles  instead  of  one." 

Such  is  French  discipline.  All  crimes  but  one  may  be  con- 
doned— desertion  never. 

Preceding  Shelby's  arrival  in  Monterey,  there  had  come  also 
Col.  Francois  Achille  Dupin,  a  Frenchman  who  was  known  as 
"The  Tiger  of  the  Tropics."  What  he  did  would  fill  a  volume. 
Recorded  here,  no  reader  would  believe  it — no  Christian  would 
imagine  such  warfare  possible.  He  was  pastsixty,  tall  as  Tecumseh, 
straight  as  a  rapier,  with  a  seat  in  the  saddle  like  an  English  guards- 
man, and  a  waist  like  a  woman.  For  deeds  of  desperate  daring  he 
had  received  more  decorations  than  could  be  displayed  upon  the 
right  breast  of  his  uniform.  His  hair  and  beard,  snowy  white, 
contrasted  strangely  with  a  stern,  set  face  that  had  been  bronzed  by 
the  sun  and  the  wind  of  fifty  campaigns. 

In  the  Chinese  expedition  this  man  had  led  the  assault  upon  the 
Emperor's  palace,  wherein  no  defender  escaped  the  bayonet  and  no 
woman  the  grasp  of  the  brutal  soldiery.  Sack  and  pillage  and 
murder  and  crimes  without  a  name  all  were  there,  and  when  the 
fierce  carnage  was  done,  Dupin,  staggering  under  the  weight  of 
rubies  and  pearls  and  diamonds,  was  a  disgraced  man.  The  inex- 
orable jaws  of  a  French  court  martial  closed  down  upon  him,  and 
he  was  dismissed  from  service.  It  was  on  the  trial  that  he  paro- 
died the  speech  of  Warren  Hastings  and  declared: 

"  When  I  saw  mountains  of  gold  and  precious  stones  piled  up 
around  me,  and  when  I  think  of  the  paltry  handfuls  taken  away, 
by  G — d,  Mr.  President,  I  am  astonished  at  my  own  moderation." 

As  they  stripped  his  decorations  and  his  ribbons  from  his  breast 
he  drew  himself  up  with  a  touching  and  graceful  air,  and  said  to 
the  officer,  saluting: 

"  They  have  left  me  nothing  but  my  scars." 

Such  a  man,  however,  tiger  and  butcher  as  he  was,  had  need  of 
the  army  and  the  army  had  need  of  him.  The  Emperor  gave  him 
back  his  rank,  his  orders,  his  decorations,  and  gave  him  as  well  his 
exile  into  Mexico. 


292  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Maximilian  refused  him ;  Bazaine  found  work  for  his  sword. 
Even  then  that  fatal  quarrel  was  in  its  beginning  which,  later, 
was  to  leave  a  kingdom  defenseless,  and  an  Emperor  without  an 
arsenal  or  a  siege-gun.  Dupin  was  ordered  to  recruit  a  regiment 
of  Contre  Guerillas,  that  is  to  say  a  regiment  of  Free  Companions 
who  were  to  be  superbly  armed  and  mounted,  and  who  were  to  fol- 
low the  Mexican  guerrillas  through  copse  and  chapparal,  through 
lowland  and  lagoon,  sparing  no  man  upon  whom  hands  were  laid, 
fighting  all  men  who  had  arms  in  their  hands,  and  who  could  be 
found  or  brought  to  bay. 

Murder  with  Dupin  was  a  fine  art.  Mistress  or  maid  he  had 
none.  That  cold,  brown  face,  classic  a  little  in  its  outlines,  and 
retaining  yet  a  little  of  its  fierce  southern  beauty,  never  grew  soft 
save  when  the  battle  was  wild  and  the  wreck  of  the  carnage  ghastly 
and  thick.  On  the  eve  of  conflict  he  had  been  known  to  smile. 
When  he  laughed  or  sang  his  men  made  the  sign  of  the  cross.  They 
knew  death  was  ready  at  arm's  length,  and  that  in  an  hour  he  would 
put  his  sickle  in  amid  the  rows  and  reap  savagely  a  fresh  harvest  of 
simple  yet  offending  Mexicans.  Of  all  things  left  to  him  from  the 
sack  of  that  Pekin  palace,  one  thing  alone  remained,  typical  of  the 
tiger  thirst  that  old  age,  nor  disgrace,  nor.wounds,  nor  rough  foreign 
service,  nor  anything  human,  had  power  potent  enough  to  quench 
or  assuage.  Victor  Hugo,  in  his  "Toilers  of  the  Sea,"  has  woven  it 
into  the  story  after  this  fashion,  looking  straight,  perhaps,  into  the 
eyes  of  the  cruel  soldier  who,  in  all  his  life,  has  never  listened  to 
prayer  or  priest: 

"A  piece  of  silk  stolen  during  the  last  war  from  the  palace  of 
the  Emperor  of  China  represented  a  shark  eating  a  crocodile, 
who  is  eating  a  serpent,  who  is  devouring  an  eagle,  who  is  preying 
on  a  swallow,  who  is  in  his  turn  eating  a  caterpillar.  All  nature 
which  is  under  our  observation  is  thus  alternately  devouring  and 
devoured.  They  prey,  prey  on  each  other." 

Dupin  preyed  upon  his  species.  He  rarely  killed  outright.  He 
had  a  theory,  often  put  into  practice,  which  was  diabolical. 

"  When  you  kill  a  Mexican,"  he  would  say,  "  that  is  the  end  of 
him.  When  you  cut  off  an  arm  or  a  leg,  that  throws  him  upon  the 
charity  of  his  friends,  and  then  two  or  three  must  support  him. 
Those  who  make  corn  can  not  make  soldiers  It  is  economy  to 
amputate." 

Hundreds  thus  passed  under  the  hands  of  his  surgeons.  His 
maimed  and  mutilated  were  in  every  town  from  Mier  to  Monterey. 
On  occasions  when  the  march  had  been  pleasant  and  the  wine  gen- 
erous, he  would  permit  chloroform  for  the  operation.  Otherwise 
not.  It  distressed  him  for  a  victim  to  die  beneath  the  knife. 

"  You  bunglers  endanger  my  theory,"  he  would  cry  out  to  his 
surgeons.  "  Why  can't  you  cut  without  killing?" 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  293 

The  "Tiger  of  the  Tropics  "  also  had  his  playful  moods.  He 
would  stretch  himself  in  the  sun,  overpower  one  with  gentleness 
and  attention,  say  soft  things  in  whispers,  quote  poetry  on  occasions, 
make  of  himself  an  elegant  host,  serve  the  wine,  laugh  low  and 
lightsomely,  wake  up  all  of  a  sudden  a  demon,  and  —  kill. 

One  instance  of  this  is  yet  a  terrible  memory  in  Monterey. 

An  extremely  wealthy  and  influential  Mexican,  Don  Vincente 
Ibarra,  was  at  home  upon  his  hacienda  one  day  about  noon  as  Dupin 
marched  by.  Perhaps  this  man  was  a  Liberal ;  certainly  he  sym- 
pathized with  Juarez  and  had  done  much  for  the  cause  in  the  shape 
of  recruiting  and  resistance  to  the  predatory  bands  of  Imperialists. 
As  yet,  however,  he  had  taken  up  no  arms,  and  had  paid  his  pro- 
portion of  the  taxes  levied  upon  him  by  Jeanningros. 

Dupiu  was  at  dinner  when  his  scouts  brought  Ibarra  into  camp. 
In  front  of  the  tent  was  a  large  tree  in  full  leaf,  whose  spreading 
branches  made  an  extensive  and  most  agreeable  shade.  Under  this 
the  Frenchman  had  a  camp-stool  placed  for  the  comfort  of  the 
Mexican. 

"Be  seated, "he  said  to  him  in  a  voice  no  harsherthan  the  wind 
among  the  leaves  overhead.  "And,  waiter,  lay  another  plate  for 
my  friend." 

The  meal  was  a  delightful  one.  Dupin  talked  as  a  subject  who 
had  a  prince  for  his  guest,  and  as  a  lover  who  had  a  woman  for  his 
listener.  In  the  intervals  of  the  conversation  he  served  the  wine. 
Ibarra  was  delighted.  His  suspicious  Spanish  heart  relaxed  the 
tension  of  its  grim  defense,  and  he  even  stroked  the  tiger's  velvet 
skin,  who  closed  his  sleepy  eyes  and  purred  under  the  caress. 

When  the  wine  was  at  its  full  cigars  were  handed.  Behind  the 
white  cloud  of  the  smoke,  Dupin's  face  darkened.  Suddenly  he 
spoke  to  Ibarra,  pointing  up  to  the  tree: 

"What  a  fine  shade  it  makes,  Senor?  Do  such  trees  ever 
bear  fruit?" 

' '  Never,  Colonel.     What  a  question." 

"Never?  All  things  are  possible  with  God,  why  not  with  a 
Frenchman?" 

"Because  a  Frenchman  believes  so  little  in  God,  perhaps." 

The  face  grew  darker  and  darker. 

"Are  your  affairs  prosperous,  Senor?" 

"  As  much  so  as  these  times  will  permit." 

"Very  good.  You  have  just  five  minutes  in  which  to  make 
them  better.  At  the  end  of  that  time  I  will  hang  you  on  that  tree 
so  sure  as  you  are  a  Mexican.  What  ho!  Captain  Jacan,  turn  out 
the  guard!" 

Ibarra's  deep  olive  face  grew  ghastly  white,  and  he  fell  upon 
his  knees.  No  prayers,  no  agonizing  entreaty,  no  despairing  sup- 
plication wrung  from  a  strong  man  in  his  agony  availed  him  aught. 


294  SHELBY'^  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

At  the  appointed  time  his  rigid  frame  swung  between  heaven  and 
earth,  another  victim  to  the  mood  of  one  who  never  knew  an  hour 
of  penitence  or  mercy.  The  tree  had  borne  fruit. 

And  so  this  manner  of  a  man — this  white-haired  Dupin — decor 
ated,  known  to  two  continents  as  the  "Tiger  of  the  Tropics,"  who 
kept  four  picked  Chasseurs  to  stand  guard  about  and  over  him  night 
and  day,  this  old-young  soldier,  with  a  voice  like  a  school-girl  and 
a  heart  like  glacier,  came  to  Monterey  and  recruited  a  regiment  of 
Contre-Guerrillas,  a  regiment  that  feared  neither  God,  man,  the 
Mexicans  nor  the  devil. 

Under  him  as  a  captain  was  Charles  Ney,  the  grandson  of  that 
other  Ney  who  cried  out  to  D'Erlon  at  Waterloo,  "  Come  and  see 
how  a  marshal  of  France  dies  on  the  field  of  battle." 

In  Captain  Ney's  company  there  were  two  squadrons — a  French 
squadron  and  an  American  squadron,  the  last  having  for  its  com- 
mander Capt.  Frank  Moore,  of  Alabama.  Under  Moore  were  one 
hundred  splendid  Confederate  soldiers  who,  refusing  to  surrender, 
had  sought  exile,  and  had  stranded  upon  that  inevitable  lee  shore 
called  necessity.  Between  the  Scylla  of  short  rations  and  the 
Charybdis  of  empty  pockets,  the  only  channel  possible  was  the 
open  sea.  So  into  it  sailed  John  C.  Moore,  Armistead,  Williams  and 
the  rest  of  that  American  squadron  which  was  to  become  famous 
from  Matamoras  to  Matehuala. 

This  much  by  the  way  of  preface  has  been  deemed  necessary  in 
order  that  an  accurate  narrative  may  be  made  of  the  murder  of 
Gen.  M.  M.  Parsons,  of  Jefferson  City,  his  brother-in-law,  Colonel 
Standish,  of  the  same  place,  the  Hon.  M.  D.  Conrow,  of  Caldwell 
county,  and  three  gallant  young  Irishmen,  James  Mooney,  Patrick 
Langdon,  and  Michael  Monarthy .  Ruthlessly  butchered  in  a  foreign 
country,  they  yet  had  avengers.  When  the  tale  was  told  to  Colonel 
Dupin,  by  John  Moore,  he  listened  as  an  Indian  in  ambush  might 
to  the  heavy  tread  of  some  unwary  and  approaching  trapper.  After 
the  story  had  been  finished  he  asked,  abruptly: 

"What  would  you  Americans  have." 

'*  Per  mission,"  said  Moore,  "to  gather  up  what  is  left  of  our 
comrades  and  bury  what  is  left." 

"And  strike  a  good,  fair  blow  in  return?  " 

"  Maybe  so,  Colonel." 

"Thenmarclie  at  daylight  with  your  squadron.  Let  me  hear 
when  you  return  that  not  one  stone  upon  another  of  the  robber's 
rendezvous  has  been  left." 

Gen.  M.  M.  Parsons  had  commanded  a  division  of  Missouri 
infantry  with  great  credit  to  himself,  and  with  great  honor  to  the 
State.  He  was  a  soldier  of  remarkable  personal  beauty,  of  great 
dash  in  battle,  of  unsurpassed  horsemanship,  and  of  that  graceful 
and  natural  suavity  of  manner  which  endeared  him  alike  to  his 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  295 

brother  officers  and  to  the  men  over  whom  he  was  placed  in 
command.  His  brother-in-law,  Colonel  Standish,  was  his  chief  of 
staff,  and  a  frank,  fearless  young  officer,  whom  the  Missourians 
knew  and  admired.  Capt.  Aaron  H.  Conrow  had,  before  the  war, 
represented  Caldwell  county  in  the  Legislature,  and  had,  during  the 
war,  been  elected  to  the  Confederate  Congress.  With  these  three 
men  were  three  brave  and  faithful  young  Irish  soldiers,  James 
Mooney,  Patrick  Langdon  and  Michael  Monarthy — six  in  all,  who, 
for  the  crime  of  being  Armericans,  had  to  die. 

Following  in  the  rear  of  Shelby's  expedition  in  the  vain  hope  of 
overtaking  it,  they  reached  the  neighborhood  of  Pedras  Negras  too 
late  to  cross  the  Rio  Grande  there.  A  strong  body  of  guerrillas  had 
moved  up  into  the  town  and  occupied  it  immediately  after  Shelby's 
withdrawal.  Crossing  the  river,  however,  lower  down,  they  had 
entered  Mexico  in  safety,  and  had  won  their  perilous  way  to 
Monterey  without  serious  loss  or  molestation.  Not  content  to  go 
further  at  that  time,  and  wishing  to  return  to  Camargo  for  purposes 
of  communication  with  Texas,  they  availed  themselves  of  the 
protection  of  a  train  of  supply  wagons  sent  by  Jeanningros,  heavily 
guarded  by  Imperial  Mexican  soldiers,  to  Matamoras.  Jeanniugros 
gave  them  safe  conduct  as  far  as  possible,  and  some  good  advice  as 
well,  which  advice  simply  warned  them  against  trusting  anything 
whatever  to  Mexican  courage  or  Mexican  faith. 

The  wagon  train  and  its  escort  advanced  well  on  their  way  to 
Matamoras — well  enough  at  least  to  be  beyond  the  range  of  French 
succor  should  the  worst  come  to  the  worst.  But  on  the  evening  of  the 
fourth  day,  in  a  narrow  defile  at  the  crossing  of  an  exceedingly  rapid 
and  dangerous  stream,  the  escort  was  furiously  assailed  by  a  large 
body  of  Juaristas,  checked  at  once,  and  finally  driven  back.  General 
Parsons  and  his  party  retreated  with  the  rest  until  the  night's  camp 
was  reached,  when  a  little  council  of  war  was  called  by  the  Ameri- 
cans. Conrow  and  Standish  were  in  favor  of  abandoning  the  trip 
for  the  present,  especially  as  the  whole  country  was  aroused  and  in 
waiting  for  the  train,  and  more  especially  as  the  guerrillas,  attracted 
by  the  scent  of  plunder,  were  swarming  upon  the  roads  and  in  am- 
bush by  every  pass  and  beside  the  fords  of  every  stream.  General 
Parsons  overruled  them,  and  determined  to  make  the  venture  as  soon 
as  the  moon  arose,  in  the  direction  of  Camargo. 

None  took  issue  with  him  further.  Accustomed  to  exact  obedi- 
ence, much  of  the  old  soldierly  spirit  was  still  in  existence,  and  so 
they  followed  him  blindly  and  with  alacrity.  At  daylight  the  next 
morning  the  entire  party  was  captured.  Believing,  however,  that 
the  Americans  were  bnt  the  advance  of  a  larger  and  more  formid- 
able party,  the  Mexicans  neither  dismounted  nor  disarmed  them. 
While  at  breakfast,  and  at  the  word  of  command  from  General  Par- 
sons, tlje  whole  six  galloped  off  under  a  fierce  fire  of  musketry, 


296  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

unhurt,  baffling  all  pursuit,  and  gaining  some  good  hours'  advantage^ 
over  their  captors.  It  availed  them  nothing,  however.  About  noon 
of  the  second  day  they  were  again  captured,  this  time  falling  into  the 
hands  of  Figueroa,  a  robber  chief  as  notorious  among  the  Mexicans, 
as  Dupin  was  among  the  French. 

Short  shrift  came  afterward.  Colonel  Standish  was  shot  first. 
When  told  of  the  fate  intended  for  him,  he  bade  good-bye  to  his. 
comrades,  knelt  a  few  moments  in  silent  prayer,  and  then  stood  up, 
firmly,  facing  his  murderers.  At  the  discharge  of  the  musketry 
platoon,  he  was  dead  before  he  touched  the  ground.  Two  bullets, 
pierced  his  generous  and  dauntless  heart. 

Capt.  Aaron  H.  Conrow  died  next.  He  expected  no  mercy,, 
and  he  made  no  plea  for  life.  A  request  to  be  permitted  to  write  a 
a  few  lines  to  his  wife  was  denied  him,  Figueroa  savagely  ordering 
the  execution  to  proceed.  The  firing  party  shortened  the  distance, 
between  it  and  their  victim,  placing  him  but  three  feet  away  from 
the  muzzles  of  their  muskets.  Like  Standish  he  refused  to  have  his. 
eyes  bandaged.  Knowing  but  few  words  of  Spanish,  he  called 
out  in  his  brave,  quick  fashion,  and  in  his  own  language,  "Fire!"' 
and  the  death  he  got  was  certain  and  instantaneous.  He  fell  within 
a  few  paces  of  his  comrade,  dead  like  him  before  he  touched  the, 
ground. 

The  last  moments  of  the  three  young  Irish  soldiers  had  now  come.. 
They  had  seen  the  stern  killing  of  Standish  and  Conrow,  and  they 
neither  trembled  nor  turned  pale.  It  can  do  no  good  to  ask  what, 
thoughts  were  theirs,  or  if  from  over  the  waves  of  the  wide  Atlantic 
some  visions  came  that  were  strangely  and  sadly  out  of  place  in  front, 
of  the  chapparal  and  the  sandaled  Mexicans.  Monarthy  asked  for  a. 
priest  and  received  one.  He  was  a  kind-hearted,  ignorant  Indian, 
who  would  have  saved  them  if  he  could,  but  safe  from  the  bloody 
hands  of  Figueroa  no  foreigner  had  ever  yet  come.  The  three  men 
confessed  and  received  such  consolation  as  the  living  could  give  to 
men  as  good  as  dead.  Then  they  joined  hands  and  spoke  some  earn- 
est  words  together  for  the  brief  space  permitted  them.  Langdon, 
the  youngest,  was  only  twenty-two.  A  resident  of  Mobile  when  the 
war  commenced,  he  had  volunteered  in  a  battery,  had  been  captured 
at  Vicksburg,  and  had,  later,  joined  Pindall's  battalion  of  sharp- 
shooters in  Parsons'  Division.  He  had  a  face  like  a  young  girl's, 
it  was  so  fair  and  fresh.  All  who  knew  him  loved  him.  In  all  the 
Confederate  army  there  was  neither  braver  nor  better  soldier. 
Mooney  was  a  man  of  fifty-five,  with  an  iron  frame  and  with  a  gaunt 
scarred,  rugged  face  that  was  yet  kindly  and  attractive.  He  took 
Langdon  in  his  arms  and  kissed  him  twice,  once  on  each  cheek, 
shook  hands  with  Monarthy,  and  opened  his  breast.  The  close, 
deadly  fire  was  received  standing  and  with  eyes  wide  open.  Lang- 
don died  without  a  struggle,  Mooney  groaned,  twice  and  tried  to» 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  297 

speak.  Death  finished  the  sentence  ere  it  was  commenced.  Monarthy 
required  the  coup  de  grace.  A  soldier  went  close  to  him,  rested  the 
muzzle  of  his  musket  against  his  head  and  fired.  He  was  very  quiet 
then;  the  murder  was  dene;  five  horrible  corpses  lay  in  a  pool  of 
blood;  the  shadows  deepened;  and  the  cruel  eyes  of  Figueroa 
roamed,  as  the  eyes  of  a  tiger,  from  the  ghastly  faces  of  the  dead  to 
the  stern,  set  face  of  the  living.  General  Parsons  felt  that  for  him, 
too,  the  supreme  moment  had  come  at  last. 

Left  in  that  terrible  period  alone,  none  this  side  eternity  will  ever 
know  what  he  suffered  and  endured.  Waiting  patiently  for  his 
sentence,  a  respite  was  granted.  Some  visions  of  ransom  must  have 
crossed  Figueroa's  mind.  Clad  in  the  showy  and  attractive  uniform 
of  a  Confederate  major-general,  having  the  golden  stars  of  his  rank 
upon  hia  collar,  magnificently  mounted,  and  being  withal  a  remark- 
ably handsome  and  commanding-looking  soldier  himself,  it  was  for 
a  time  at  least  thought  best  to  hold  him  a  prisoner.  His  horse  even 
was  given  back  to  him,  and  for  some  miles  further  toward  Mata- 
moras  he  was  permitted  to  ride  with  those  who  had  captured  him. 
The  Captain  of  the  guard  immediately  in  charge  of  his  person  had 
also  a  very  fine  horse,  whose  speed  he  was  continually  boasting  of. 
Fortunately  this  officer  spoke  English,  thus  permitting  General 
Parsons  to  converse  with  him.  Much  bantering  was  had  concerning 
the  speed  of  the  two  horses.  A  race  was  at  length  proposed.  The 
two  men  started  off  at  a  furious  gallop,  the  American  steadily  gain- 
ing upon  the  Mexican .  Finding  himself  in  danger  of  being  dis- 
tanced, the  Captain  drew  up  and  ordered  his  competitor  in  the  race 
to  halt.  Unheeding  the  command,  General  Parsons  dashed  on  with 
the  utmost  speed,  escaping  the  shots  from  the  revolver  of  the  Mexi- 
can, and  eluding  entirely  Figueroa  and  his  command.  Although  in 
a  country  filled  with  treacherous  and  blood-thirsty  savages,  and 
ignorant  of  the  roads  and  the  language,  General  Parsons  might  have 
reduced  the  chances  against  him  in  the  proportion  cf  ten  to  one, 
had  he  concealed  himself  in  some  neighboring  chapparal  and  waited 
until  the  night  fell.  He  did  not  do  this,  but  continued  his  flight 
rapidly  down  the  broad  highway  which  ran  directly  from  Monterey 
to  Matamoras.  There  could  be  but  one  result.  A  large  scouting 
party  of  Figueroa's  forces  returning  to  the  headquarters  of  their 
chief  met  him  before  he  had  ridden  ten  miles,  again  took  him 
prisoner,  and  again  delivered  him  into  the  hands  of  the  ferocious 
bandit. 

Death  followed  almost  instantly.  None  who  witnessed  the  deed 
have  ever  told  how  he  died,  but  three  days  afterward  his  body  was 
found  stripped  by  the  wayside,  literally  shot  to  pieces.  Some  Mexi- 
cans then  buried  it,  marking  the  unhallowed  spot  with  a  cross. 
Afterward  Figueroa,  dressed  in  the  full  uniform  of  General  Parsons, 
was  in  occupation  of  Cam?>-go,  while  the  same  Colonel  Johnson, 


298  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  : 

who  had  followed  Shelby  southwardly  frcm  San  Antonio,  held  the 
opposite  shore  of  the  Rio  Grande  on  the  American  side.  Figueroa, 
gloating  over  the  savageness  of  the  deed,  and  imagining,  in  his  stolid 
Indian  cunning,  that  the  Federal  officers  would  pay  handsomely  for 
the  spoils  of  the  murdered  Confederate,  proffered  to  deliver  to  him 
General  Parsons'  coat,  pistols  and  private  papers  for  a  certain  speci- 
fied sum,  detailing,  at  the  same  time,  with  revolting  accuracy,  the 
merciless  particulars  of  the  butchery.  Horrified  at  the  cool  rapacity 
of  the  robber,  and  thinking  only  of  General  Parsons  as  an  American 
and  a  brother,  Colonel  Johnson  tried  for  weeks  to  entice  Figueroa 
across  the  river,  intending  to  do  a  righteous  vengeance  upon  him. 
Too  wily  and  too  cowardly  to  be  caught,  he  moved  back  suddenly 
into  the  interior,  sending  a  message  afterward  to  Colonel  Johnson 
full  of  taunting  and  defiance. 

Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  own  blood  be 
shed.  Dupin's  avengers  were  on  the  track,  imbued  with  Dupin's 
spirit,  and  having  over  them  the  stern  memory  of  Dupin's  laconic 
orders.  Leave  not  one  stone  upon  another.  And  why  should 
there  be  habitations  when  the  inhabitants  were  scattered  or  killed. 

Las  Flores  was  a  flower  town,  beautiful  in  name,  and  beautiful 
in  the  blue  of  the  skies  which  bent  over  it:  in  the  blue  of  the  mount- 
ains which  caught  the  morning  and  wove  for  it  a  gossamer  robe  of 
amethyst  and  pearl;  in  the  song  and  flow  of  running  water,  where 
women  sat  and  sang,  and  combed  their  dusky  hair;  and  in  the  olden, 
immemorial  groves,  filled  with  birds  that  had  gold  for  plumage,  and 
sweet  seed  and  sunshine  for  mating  and  wooing  songs. 

Hither  would  come  Figueroa  in  the  lull  of  the  long  marches,  and 
in  the  relaxation  of  the  nights  of  ambush,  and  the  days  of  watching 
and  starving.  Booty  and  beauty,  and  singing  maidens  all  were  there. 
There  red  gold  would  buy  right  royal  kisses,  and  there  feasting  and 
minstrelsy  told  of  the  pillage  done,  and  the  rapine  and  slaughter 
beyond  the  sweep  of  the  mountains  that  had  cut  the  sky  line. 

God  help  all  of  them  who  tarried  till  the  American  squadron 
charged  into  the  town,  one  hundred  rank  and  file,  Frank  Moore  lead- 
ing— all  who  had  beard  upon  their  faces  or  guns  within  their  hands. 
A  trusty  guide  had  made  the  morning  a  surprise.  It  wag  not  yet 
daylight.  Some  white  mist,  like  a  corpse  abandoning  a  bier,  was 
creeping  up  from  the  lowlands.  The  music  and  the  lights  had  died 
out  in  the  streets.  The  east,  not  yet  awakened,  had  on  its  face  the 
placid  pallor  of  sleep.  What  birds  flew  were  weary  of  wing  and 
voiceless  in  the  sober  hush  of  dreamless  nature. 

Leave  not  one  stone  upon  another.  And  the  faces  of  the  Ameri- 
cans were  set  as  a  flint  and  the  massacre  began.  Never  were  six 
men  so  terribly  avenged.  It  need  not  be  told  what  flames  were 
there,  what  harsh  and  gutteral  oaths,  what  tawny  faces  blanched 
»nd  grew  white,  what  cries  and  vollies  and  shrieks,  and  deaths 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  299 

that  made  no  moan  arose  on  the  morning,  and  scared  the  mist  from 
the  water,  the  paradise  birds  from  their  bowers  amid  the  limes  and 
the  orange  trees.  It  was  over  at  last.  Call  the  roll  and  gather  up 
the  corpses.  Fifteen'  Americans  dead,  eleven  wounded,  and  so 
many  Mexicans  that  you  could  not  count  them.  Las  Flores,  the 
City  of  the  Flowers,  had  become  to  be  Las  Cruces,  the  City  of  the 
Crosses. 

When  the  tale  was  told  to  Dupin,  he  rubbed  his  brown  bare 
hands  and  lent  his  arm  on  his  subaltern's  shoulder. 

"  Tell  me  about  it  again,"  he  ordered. 

The  tale  was  told. 

"Oh!  brave  Americans!"  he  shouted.  "Americans  after  my 
own  heart.  You  shall  be  saluted  with  sloping  standards  and  un- 
covered heads." 

The  bugles  rang  out  "to  horse,"  the  regiment  got  under  arms, 
the  American  squadron  passed  in  review  along  the  ranks,  the  flags 
were  lowered  and  inclined,  officers  and  men  uncovered  as  the  files 
marched  down  the  lines;  there  were  greetings  and  rejoicings,  and 
from  the  already  lengthened  life  of  the  white-haired  commander 
five  good  years  of  toil  and  exposure  had  been  taken.  For  a  week 
thereafter  he  was  seen  to  smile  and  to  be  glad.  After  that  the  old 
Vild  work  commenced  again. 


CHAPTER  X. 

IN  Monterey,  tit  the  time  of  Shelby's  arrival,  there  was  one  man 
who  had  figured  somewhat  extensively  in  a  role  new  to  most 
Americans.  This  man  was  the  Hon.  'William  M.  Gwin,  ex-United 
States  Senator  and  ex  Governor  of  California.  He  had  been  to 
France  and  just  returned.  Accomplished  in  all  of  the  social  graces; 
an  aristocrat  born  and  a  bit  of  an  Imperialist  as  well;  full  of  wise 
words  and  sage  reflections;  graceful  in  his  conversation  and  charm- 
ing over  his  wine;  having  the  political  history  of  his  country  at  hear 
as  a  young  Catholic  does  his  catechism;  fond  of  the  pomp  and 
the  paraphernalia  of  royalty;  nothing  of  a  soldier,  but  much  of  a 
diplomatist;  a  stranger  to  reverence  and  a  cosmopolitan  in  religion, 
he  was  a  right  proper  man  to  hold  court  in  Sonora,  the  Mexican 
province  whose  affairs  he  was  to  administer  upon  as  a  Duke. 
Napoleon  had  granted  him  letters  patent  for  this,  and  for  this  he 
had  ennobled  him.  It  is  nowhere  recorded  that  he  took  possession 
of  his  province.  Granted  an  audience  by  Maximilian  he  laid  his 
plans  before  him  and  asked  for  a  prompt  installment  into  the  admin- 
istration of  the  dukedom.  It  was  refused  peremptorily.  At  the 
mercy  of  Bazaine,  and  having  no  soldiers  worthy  the  name  other 
than  French  soldiers,  the  Mexican  Emperor  had  weighty  reasons 
besides  private  ones  for  such  refusal.  It  was  not  time  for  the 
coquetries  of  empire  before  that  empire  had  an  army,  a  bank 
account,  and  a  clean  bill  of  health.  Gwin  became  indignant, 
Bazaine  became  amused,  and  Maximilian  became  disgusted.  In  the 
end  the  Duke  left  the  country  and  the  guerrillas  seized  upon  the 
dukedom.  When  Shelby  reached  Monterey,  ex-Governor  Gwin  was 
outward  bound  for  Matamoras,  reaching  the  United  States  later  only 
to  be  imprisoned  in  Fort  Jackson,  below  New  Orleans,  for  several 
long  and  weary  months.  The  royal  sufferer  had  most  excellent, 
company  —  although  Democratic,  and  therefore  unsympathetic^ 
General  John  B.  Clark,  returning  about  the  same  time,  was  pounced 
upon  and  duly  incarcerated.  Gwin  attempted  to  convert  him  to 
imperialism,  but  it  ended  by  Clark  bringing  Gwin  back  to  Democ- 
racy. And  a  noble  Missourian  was  "  Old"  General  Clark,  as  the 
soldiers  loved  to  call  him.  Lame  from  a  wound  received  while 
leading  his  brigade  gallantly  into  action  at  Wilson's  Creek,  penniless 
in  a  land  for  whose  sake  he  had  given  up  gladly  a  magnificent 
fortune,  proscribed  of  the  Government,  a  prisoner  without  a  country, 
an  exile  who  was  not  permitted  to  return  in  peace,  dogmatic  and 
defiant  to  the  last,  he  went  into  Fort  Jackson  a  rebel,  remained  a 
rebel  there,  came  away  a  rebel,  and  a  rebel  he  will  continue  to  be  as 

300 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  301 

long  as  life  permits  him  to  use  the  rough  Anglo  Saxon  oaths  which 
go  to  make  up  his  rebel  vocabulary.  On  the  march  into  Mexico  he 
had  renewed  his  youth.  In  the  night  watches  he  told  tales  of  his 
boyhood,  and  by  the  camp  fires  he  replenished  anew  the  fires  of  his 
memory.  Hence  all  the  anecdotes  that  amused — all  the  reminis- 
cences which  delighted.  At  the  crossing  of  the  Salinas  river  he  fell 
in  beside  General  Shelby,  a  musket  in  his  hand,  and  the  old  ardor  of 
battle  upon  his  stern  and  weather-beaten  face. 

"  Where  would  you  go?"  asked  Shelby. 

"As  far  as  you  go,  my  young  man." 

"Not  this  day,  my  old  friend,  if  I  can  help  it.  There  are 
younger  and  less  valuable  men  who  shall  take  this  risk  alone.  Get  out 
of  the  ranks,  General.  The  column  can  not  advance  unless  you  do." 

Forced  against  his  will  to  retire,  he  was  mad  for  a  week,  and 
only  recovered  his  amiability  after  being  permitted  to  engage  in  the 
night  encounter  at  the  Pass  of  the  Palms. 

Before  marching  northward  from  Monterey,  Shelby  sought  one 
last  interview  with  General  Jeanningros.  It  was  courteously 
accorded.  General  Preston,  who  had  gone  forward  from  Texas  to 
open  negotiations  with  Maximilian,  and  who  had  reached  Mexico 
City  in  safety,  had  not  yet  reported  the  condition  of  his  surround- 
ings. It  was  Shelby's  desire  to  take  military  service  in  the  Empire 
since  his  men  had  refused  to  become  the  followers  of  Juarez  at 
Piedras  Negras.  Knowing  that  a  corps  of  fifty  thousand  Ameri- 
cans could  be  recruited  in  a  few  months  after  a  base  of  operations 
had  once  been  established,  he  sought  the  advice  of  General  Jean- 
ningros to  this  end,  meaning  to  deal  frankly  with  him,  and  to  dis- 
cuss fully  his  plans  and  purposes. 

Jeanningros  had  grown  gray  in  the  service.  He  acknowledged 
but  one  standard  of  perfection — success.  Never  mind  the  means, 
so  only  the  end  was  glory  and  France.  The  camps  had  made  him 
cruel;  the  barracks  had  given  to  this  cruelty  a  kind  of  fascinating 
rhetoric.  Sometimes  he  dealt  in  parables.  One  of  these  told  more 
of  the  paymaster  than  the  zouave,  more  of  Minister  Rouher  than 
Marshal  McMahon.  He  would  say: 

"Napoleon  and  Maximilian  have  formed  a  partnership.  To  get 
it  well  agoing  much  money  has  been  spent.  Some  bargains  have 
been  bad,  and  some  vessels  have  been  lost.  There  is  a  crisis  at 
hand.  More  capital  is  needed  to  save  what  has  already  been 
invested,  and  'for  one,  rather  than  lose  the  millions  swallowed  up 
yesterday,  I  would  put  in  as  many  more  millions  to-day.  It  is 
economy  to  hold  on." 

Shelby  went  straight  at  his  work : 

"  I  do  not  know  what  you  think  of  things  here,  General,  nor  of 
the  outcome  the  future  has  in  store  for  the  Empire,  but  one  thing  is 
certain,  I  shall  tell  you  the  plain  truth.  The  Federal  Government 


8C2  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

has  no  lore  for  your  French  occupation  of  Mexico.  If  diplomacy 
can't  get  you  out,  infantry  divisions  will.  I  left  a  large  army  con- 
centrating upon  the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  all  the  faces  of  all 
the  men  were  looking  straight  forward  into  Mexico.  Will  France 
fight?  For  one,  I  hope  so;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  if  your  Emperor 
had  meant  to  be  serious  in  this  thing,  his  plan  should  have  been  to 
have  formed  an  alliance  long  ago,  offensive  and  defensive,  with 
Jefferson  Davis.  This,  in  the  event  of  success,  would  have  guar- 
anteed you  the  whole  country,  and  obliged  you  as  well  to  have 
opened  the  ports  of  Charleston,  Savannah  and  New  Orleans.  Better 
battles  could  have  been  fought  on  the  Potomac  than  on  the  llio 
Grande;  surer  results  would  have  followed  from  a  French  landing 
at  Mobile  than  at  Tampico  or  Vera  Cruz.  You  have  waited  too  long. 
Flushed  with  a  triumphant  termination  of  the  war,  American 
diplomacy  now  means  the  Monroe  doctrine,  pure  and  simple,  with 
a  little  of  Yankee  brutality  and  braggadocio  thrown  in.  Give  me  a 
port  as  a  basis  of  operations,  and  I  can  organize  an  American  force 
capable  of  keeping  Maximilian  upon  his  throne.  If  left  discretionary 
with  me,  that  port  shall  be  either  Guaymas  or  Mazatlan.  The  Cali- 
fornianslove  adventure,  and  many  leaders  amongthem  have  already 
sent  messengers  to  me  with  overtures.  My  agent  at  the  capital  has 
not  yet  reported,  and,  consequently,  I  am  uninformed  as  to  the 
wishes  of  the  Emperor;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  the  French  can  not 
remain,  and  he  can  not  rule  over  Mexicans  with  Mexicans.  With- 
out foreign  aid  he  is  lost.  You  knowBazaine  better  than  I  do,  and 
so  what  would  Bazaine  say  to  all  this?" 

Jeanningros  heard  him  patiently  to  the  end,  answering  Shelby  as 
frankly  as  he  had  been  addressed  : 

"There  will  be  no  war  between  France  and  the  United  States, 
and  of  this  you  may  rest  assured.  I  can  not  answer  for  Marshal 
Bazaine,  nor  for  his  wishes  and  intentions.  There  is  scant  love, 
however,  between  his  excellency  and  Maximilian,  because  one  is  a 
scholar  and  the  other  is  a  soldier ;  but  I  do  not  think  the  Marshal 
would  be  averse  to  the  employment  of  American  soldiers  in  the 
service  of  the  Empire.  You  have  my  full  permission  to  march  to 
the  Pacific,  and  to  take  such  other  steps  as  will  seem  best  to  you  in 
the  matter  of  which  you  have  just  spoken.  The  day  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  every  French  soldier  in  Mexico  will  be  withdrawn, 
although  this  would  not  necessarily  destroy  the  Empire.  Who  will 
take  their  places  ?  Mexicans.  Bah  !  beggars  ruling  over  beggars, 
cut-throats  lying  in  wait  for  cut-throats,  traitors  on  the  inside  mak- 
ing signs  for  traitors  on  the  outside  to  come  in.  Not  thus  are 
governments  upheld  and  administered.  Healthy  blood  must  be 
poured  through  every  effete  and  corrupted  vein  of  this  effete  and 
corrupted  nation  ere  the  Austrian  can  sleep  a  good  man's  sleep  in 
his  palace  of  Chepultepec." 


AN  UNWKITTEN  LEAP  OP  THE  WAR.  803 

The  interview  ended,  and  Shelby  marched  northward  to  Sal- 
tillo.  The  first  camp  beyond  was  upon  the  battle  field  of  Buena 
Vista.  It  was  sunset  when  the  column  reached  the  memorable  and 
historic  field.  A  gentle  rain  in  the  morning  had  washed  the  grass 
until  it  shone,  had  washed  the  trees  until  the  leaves  glistened  and 
smelt  of  perfume.  After  the  bivouac  was  made,  silence  and  twi- 
light, as  twin  ghosts,  crept  up  the  glade  together.  Nest  spoke  unto 
nest  in  the  gloaming,  and  bade  good-night  as  the  moon  arose.  It  was 
an  harvest  moon,  white  and  splended  and  large  as  a  tent-leafed 
palm.  Away  over  to  the  left  a  mountain  arose,  where  the  mist 
gathered  and  hung  dependent  as  the  locks  of  a  giant.  The  left  of 
the  American  army  had  rested  there.  In  its  shadows  had  McKee 
fallen,  and  there  had  Hardin  died,  and  there  had  the  lance's  point 
found  Yell's  dauntless  heart,  and  there  had  the  young  Clay  yielded 
up  his  precious  life  in  its  stainless  and  its  spotless  prime.  The 
great  ravine  still  cut  the  level  plain  asunder.  Rank  mesquite  grew 
all  along  the  crest  of  the  deadly  hill  where  the  Mississippiacs 
formed,  and  where,  black-lipped  and  waiting,  Bragg's  battery 
crouched  in  ambush  at  its  feet.  Shining  as  a  satin  band,  the  broad 
highway  layt  white  under  the  moonlight  toward  Saltillo — the  high- 
way to  gain  which  Santa  Anna  dashed  his  desperate  army  in  vain 
— the  highway  which  held  the  rear  and  the  life  and  the  fame  of  the 
Northern  handful. 

General  Hindman,  a  soldier  in  the  regiment  of  Col.  Jefferson 
Davis,  explored  the  field  under  the  moon  and  the  stars,  having  at 
his  back  a  regiment  of  younger  Americans  who,  although  the  actors 
in  a  direr  and  more  dreadful  war,  yet  clung  on  to  their  earliest 
superstitions  and  their  spring  time  faith  in  the  glory  and  the 
carnage  of  Buena  Vista.  He  made  the  camp  a  long  to  be  remem- 
bered one.  Here  a  squadron  charged;  there  a  Lancer  regiment, 
gaily  caparisoned  in  scarlet  and  gold,  crept  onward  and  onward 
until  the  battery's  dun  smoke  broke  as  a  wave  over  pennant  and 
plume;  here  the  grtm  Northern  lines  reeled  and  rallied;  there  the 
sandaled  Mexicans,  rent  into  fragments,  swarmed  into  the  jaws  of 
the  ravine,  crouching  low  as  the  hot  temptest  of  grape  and  canister 
rushed  over  and  beyond  them;  yonder,  where  the  rank  grass  is 
greenest  and  freshest,  the  uncoffined  dead  were  buried;  and  every- 
where upon  the  right  and  the  left,  the  little  mounds  arose,  guarding 
for  evermore  the  sacred  dust  of  the  stranger  slain. 

The  midnight  came,  and  the  harvest  moon,  as  a  spectral  boat, 
was  floating  away  to  the  west  in  a  tide  of  silver  and  gold.  The 
battle-field  lay  under  the  great,  calm  face  of  the  sky — a  sepulchre. 
Looking  out  from  his  bivouac  who  knows  what  visions  came  to  the 
musing  soldier,  as  grave  after  grave  gave  up  its  dead,  and  as  spirit 
after  spirit  put  on  its  uniform  and  its  martial  array.  Pale  squadrons 
galloped  again  through  the  gloom  of  the  powder-pall;  again  the 


304 


SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO : 


deep  roar  of  the  artillery  lent  its  mighty  voice  to  swell  the  thunder 
of  the  gathering  battle;  again  the  rival  flags  rose  and  fell  in  the 
"hot,  lit  foreground  of  the  fight;"  again  the  Lancers  charged; 
piercing  and  sweet  and  wildly  shrill,  the  bugles  again  called  out 
for  victory;  and  again  from  out  the  jaws  of  the  cavernous  ravine  a 
tawny  tide  emerged,  clutching  fiercely  at  the  priceless  road,  and 
falling  there  in  giant  windrows  as  the  summer  hay  when  the  scythe 
of  the  reapers  takes  the  grass  that  is  rankest. 

The  moon  went  down.  The  mirage  disappeard,  and  only  the 
silent  and  deserted  battle-field  lay  out  under  the  stars,  its  low  trees 
waving  in  the  night  wind,  and  its  droning  katydids  sighing  in  the 
grasses  above  the  graves. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

FROM  Parras  there  was  a  broad,  national  highway  running 
directly  to  Sonora,  and  so  Shelby  marched  from  Saltillo  to  Parras, 
intending  to  rest  there  a  few  days  and  then  continue  on  to  the 
Pacific,  keeping  steadily  in  view  the  advice  and  the  information 
given  him  by  General  Jeanningros. 

His  entrance  into  the  city  was  stormy,  and  his  reception  there 
had  neither  sunlight  nor  temperate  air  about  it.  Indeed,  none  of 
the  Parras  winds  blew  him  good.  When  within  two  days'  march 
of  Parras  a  sudden  rain  storm  came  out  of  the  sky,  literally  inun- 
dating the  ground  of  the  bivouac.  The  watch  fires  were  all  put 
out.  Sleep  was  banished,  and  in  the  noisy  jubilation  of  the  wind  a 
guerrilla  band  stole  down  upon  the  camp.  Dick  Collins,  James 
Kirtley,  George  Winship  and  James  Meadow  were  on  picquet  duty 
at  the  mouth  of  a  canyon  on  the  north.  They  were  peerless  sol- 
diers and  they  knew  how  to  keep  their  powder  dry.  The  unseen 
moon  had  gone  down,  and  the  rain  and  the  wind  warred  with  each 
other.  Some  black  objects  rose  up  between  the  eyes  of  Winship  on 
the  outermost  post,  and  the  murky  clouds,  yet  a  little  light,  above 
the  darker  jaws  of  the  canyon.  Weather  proof,  Winship  spoke  to 
Collins : 

"There  is  game  afoot.  No  peaceful  thing  travels  on  such  a 
devil's  night  as  this." 

The  four  men  gathered  closer  together,  watching.  Of  a  sudden 
a  tawny  and  straggling  kind  of  flame  leaped  out  from  the  canyon 
and  showed  the  faces  of  the  Americans,  one  to  another.  They 
were  all  resolute  and  determined.  They  told  how  the  dauntless 
four  meant  to  stand  there  and  fight  there  and  die  there,  if  needs  be, 
until  the  sleeping  camp  could  get  well  upon  its  feet.  Sheltered  a 
little  by  the  darkness,  and  more  by  the  rocks  before  and  around 
them,  they  held  desperately  on,  "four  men  fighting  two  hundred. 
The  strange  combat  waxed  hotter  and  closer.  Under  the  murky 
night  the  guerrillas  crawled  ever  nearer  and  nearer.  Standing 
closely  together  the  Americans  fired  at  the  flashes  of  the  Mexican 
muskets.  As  yet  they  had  not  resorted  to  their  revolvers.  Trained 
to  perfection  in  the  use  of  Sharp's  carbines,  their  guns  seemed 
always  loaded.  Collins  spoke  first  in  his  quaint,  characteristic 
way: 

"  Boys,  it's  hot  despite  the  rain." 

"  It  will  be  hotter /'answered  Winship. 

Then  the  wild  work  commenced  again.  This  time  they  could 
noft  load  their  carbines.  The  revolvers  had  taken  part  in  the  melee. 

305 


306  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Kirtley  was  hit  badly  in  the  left  arm,  Collins  was  bleeding  from  an 
ugly  wound  in  the  right  shoulder,  Meadow  and  Winship  each  were 
struck  slightly,  and  the  guerrillas  were  ready  for  the  death  grapple. 
Neither  thought  of  giving  one  inch  of  ground.  The  wind  blew 
furiously  and  the  rain  poured  down.  At  the  moment  when  the  final 
rush  had  come,  the  piercing  notes  of  Shelby's  bugle  were  heard,  and 
clearer  and  nearer  and  deadlier  the  great  shout  of  an  oncoming  host, 
leaping  swiftly  forward  to  the  rescue.  Past  the  four  men  on  guard, 
Shelby  leading,  the  tide  poured  into  the  pass.  What  happened 
there  the  daylight  revealed.  It  was  sure  enough  and  ghastly  enough 
to  satisfy  all,  and  better  for  some  if  the  sunlight  had  never 
uncovered  to  kindred  eyes  the  rigid  corpses  lying  stark  and  stiff 
where  they  had  fallen. 

All  at  once  a  furious  fire  of  musketry  was  heard  in  the  rear  and 
in  amid  the  tethered  horses.  Again  the  bugle's  notes  were  heard, 
and  again  Shelby's  rallying  voice  rang  out: 

"  Countermarch  for  your  lives.  Make  haste! — make  haste! — the 
very  clouds  are  raining  Mexicans  to-night." 

It  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  the  camp.  The  swiftest  men  got 
there  first.  Sure  enough  the  attack  had  been  a  most  formidable 
one.  Slayback  and  Cundiff  held  the  post  in  the  rear  and  were 
fighting  desperately.  On  foot,  in  the  darkness,  and  attacked  by 
four  hundred  guerrillas  well  acquainted  with  the  whole  country, 
they  had  yet  neither  been  surprised  nor  driven  back.  Woe  unto 
the  horses  if  they  had,  and  horses  were  as  precious  gold.  Attracted 
only  by  the  firing,  and  waiting  for  no  orders,  there  hadrushed  to  the 
rearward  post  McDougall,  Fell,  Dorsey,  Macey,  Has  Wood,  Charley 
Jones,  Vines,  Armistead  and  Elliott.  Some  aroused  from  their 
blankets,  were  hatless  and  bootless.  Inglehardtsnatched  a  lighted 
torch  from  a  sheltered  fire  and  attempted  to  light  the  way.  The 
rain  put  it  out.  Henry  Chiles,  having  his  family  to  protect,  knew, 
however,  by  instinct  that  the  rear  was  in  danger,  and  pressed  for- 
ward with  Jim  Wood  and  the  Berry  brothers.  Langhorne,  from 
the  left,  bore  down  with  John  and  Martin  Kritzer,  where  he  had 
been  all  night  with  the  herd,  keeping  vigilant  watch.  In  the  im- 
penetrable darkness  the  men  mistook  each  other.  Moreland  fired 
upon  George  Hall  and  shot  away  the  collar  of  his  overcoat.  Hall 
recognized  his  voice  and  made  himself  known  to  him.  Jake  Con- 
nor, with  the  full  swell  and  compass  of  his  magnificent  voice,  struck 
up,  "  Tramp,  tramp,  the  boys  are  marching,"  until,  guided  by  tbe 
music  of  the  song,  the  detached  parties  came  together  in  the  gloom 
and  pressed  on  rapidly  to  the  rear. 

It  was  time.  Slayback  and  Cundiff,  having  only  a  detachment 
of  twelve  men,  nine  of  whom  were  killed  or  wounded,  were  half 
surrounded.  They,  too,  had  refused  to  fall  back.  In  the  rain,  in 
the  darkness,  having  no  authorized  commander,  fired  on  from 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  307 

three  sides,  ignorant  of  the  number  and  the  positions  of  their  assail- 
ants, they  yet  charged  furiously  in  a  body  and  drove  everything 
before  them.  When  Shelby  arrived  with  reinforcements  the  combat 
was  over.  It  had  been  the-most  persistent  and  bloody  of  the  expe- 
dition. Calculating  their  chances  well,  the  guerrillas  had  attacked 
simultaneously  from  front  and  rear,  and  fought  with  a  tenacity 
unknown  before  in  their  history.  The  horses  were  the  prize,  and 
right  furiously  did  they  struggle  for  them.  Close,  reckless  fighting 
alone  saved  the  camp  and  scattered  the  desperate  robbers  in  every 
direction  among  the  mountains. 

Colonel  Depreuil,  with  the  Fifty-second  of  the  French  line,  held 
Parras,  an  extreme  outpost  on  the  north — the  key,  in  fact,  of  the 
position  toward  Chihuahua  and  Sonora.  Unlike  Jeanningros  in 
many  things,  he  was,  yet  a  fine  soldier,  a  most  overbearing  and  tyran- 
nical man.  Gathered  together  at  Parras  also,  and  waiting  permis- 
sion to  march  to  Sonora,  was  Colonel  Terry,  one  of  the  famous 
principals  in  the  Broderick  duel,  and  a  detachment  of  Texans  num- 
bering, probably,  twenty -five.  Terry's  own  account  of  this  mem- 
orable duel  was  all  the  more  interesting  because  given  by  one  who, 
of  all  others,  knew  best  the  causes  and  the  surroundings  which 
rendered  it  necessary.  In  substance  the  following  contains  the 
main  points  of  the  narrative: 

"  The  political  contest  preceding  the  duel  was  exceptionally  and 
bitterly  personal.  Broderick  recognized  the  code  fully,  and  had 
once  before  fought  and  wounded  his  man.  He  was  cool,  brave, 
dangerous  and  very  determined.  His  influence  over  his  own  im- 
mediate followers  and  friends  was  more  marked  and  emphatic  than 
that  exercised  by  any  other  man  that  I  have  ever  known.  He 
excelled  in  organization  and  attack,  and  possessed  many  of  the  most 
exalted  qualities  of  a  successful  commander.  As  an  orator  he  was 
rugged,  yet  inspired,  reminding  me  somewhat  of  my  own  picturings 
of  Mirabeau,  without  the  gigantic  persistence  and  intellect  of  Mira- 
beau.  I  do  not  desire  to  enter  into  even  the  details  which  led  to  the 
unfortunate  meeting,  for  these  have  been  given  again  and  again 
in  as  many  false  and  unnatural  ways  as  possible.  After  the  terms 
had  all  been  fully  discussed  and  agreed  upon,  and  the  time  and 
place  of  the  combat  settled,  I  said  confidentially  to  a  friend  of  mine 
that  I  did  not  intend  to  kill  Broderick.  This  friend  seemed 
greatly  surprised,  and  asked  me  after  a  few  moments'  reflection, 
what  I  really  intended  to  do  in  the  matter.  My  answer  was  that  I 
simply  desired  to  save  my  own  life,  and  that  I  should  only  disable 
him.  'It  is  a  dangerous  game  you  are  playing,' he  replied,  'and 
one  likely  to  bring  you  trouble.  Broderick  is  no  trifling  antagonist. 
He  shoots  to  kill  every  time.'  When  I  arrived  on  the  field  I  had  not 
changed  my  mind,  but  when  I  looked  into  his  eyes,  I  saw  murder 
there  as  plainly  as  murder  was  ever  depicted,  and  then  I  knew  that 


308  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

one  of  us  had  to  die.  I  put  my  life  fairly  against  his  own.  Hid 
bearing  was  magnificent,  and  his  nerve*  superbly  cool.  It  has  been 
asserted  that  I  remarked  to  my  second,  while  he  was  measuring  the 
ground,  that  he  must  take  short  steps.  This  is  untrue,  for  the 
ground  was  measured  twice,  once  by  my  own  second,  and  once  by 
the  second  of  Broderick.  They  both  agreed  perfectly.  The  dis- 
tance was  ten  paces,  and  in  size  neither  had  the  advantage.  I  felt 
confident  of  killingjhim,  however,  but  if  required  to  give  a  reason  for 
this  belief  I  could  not  give  either  a  sensible  or  an  intelligent  reason. 
You  know  the  result.  He  fell  at  the  first  fire,  shot  through  the 
neck  and  mortally  wounded.  I  did  not  approach  him  afterward, 
nor  were  any  attempts  made  at  reconciliation.  At  the  hands 
of  his  friends  I  received  about  as  large  a  share  of  personal  abuse  as 
usually  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  man;  at  the  hands  of  my  friends  I  had 
no  reason  to  complain  of  their  generous  support  and  confidence. 
When  the  war  commenced  I  left  California  as  a  volunteer  in  tbe 
Confederate  army,  and  am  here  to-day,  like  the  rest  of  you,  a  pen- 
niless and  an  adventurous  man.  What  a  strange  thing  is  destiny  ?  I 
sometimes  think  we  can  neither  mar  nor  make  our  fortunes,  but 
have  to  live  the  life  that  is  ordained  for  us.  The  future  nobody 
knows.  Perhaps  it  is  best  to  take  it  as  we  find  it,  and  bow  grace- 
fully when  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  inevitable." 

Colonel  Terry  had  felt  his  own  sorrows,  too,  in  the  desperate 
struggle.  One  brother  had  been  shot  down  by  his  side  in  Kentucky; 
a  dearly  loved  child  had  just  been  buried  in  a  foreign  land;  penni- 
less and  an  exile  himself,  he  had  neither  home,  property,  a  country, 
nor  a  cause.  All  that  was  left  to  him  were  his  honor  and  his  scars. 

Before  Shelby  arrived  in  Paris,  Colonel  Depreuil  had  received  an 
order  from  Marshal  Bazaine  intended  entirely  for  the  Americans. 
It  was  very  concise  an*d  very  much  to  the  point.  It  commenced  by 
declaring  that  Shelby's  advance  was  but  the  commencement  of  an 
irruption  of  Americans  —  Yankees,  Bazaine  called  them — who 
intended  to  overrun  Mexico,  and  to  make  war  alike  upon  the  French 
and  upon  Maximilian.  Their  march  to  Sonora,  therefore,  was  to 
be  arrested,  and  if  they  refused  to  return  to  their  own  country,  they 
were  to  be  ordered  to  report  to  him  in  the  City  of  Mexico.  No 
exceptions  were  to  be  permitted,  and  in  any  event,  Sonora  was  to 
be  held  as  forbidden  territory. 

Used  to  so  many  disappointments,  and  so  constantly  misunder- 
stood and  misinterpreted,  Shelby  felt  the  last  blow  less,  perhaps, 
than  some  heavier  ones  among  the  first  of  a  long  series.  He  called 
upon  Colonel  Depreuil,  however,  for  an  official  confirmation. 

This  interview,  like  the  night  attack,  was  a  stormy  one.  The 
Frenchman  was  drinking  and  abusive.  Uninvited  to  a  seat,  Shelby 
took  the  nearest  one  at  hand.  Upon  his  entrance  into  the  officer's 
reception  room,  he  had  removed  his  hat.  This  was  an  act  of  polite- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  309 

ness  as  natural  as  it  was  mechanical.  Afterward  it  came  near  unto 
bloodshed. 

"  I  have  called,  Colonel,"  Shelby  began,  "for  permission  to  con- 
tinue my  march  to  Sonora." 

"Such  permission  is  impossible.  You  will  turn  aside  to 
Mexico." 

"May  I  ask  the  reason  of  this  sudden  resolution?  GeneralJean- 
ningros  had  no  information  to  this  effect  when  I  left  him  the  other 
day  in  Monterey." 

At  the  mention  of  Jeanningros'  name,  Depreuil  became  furious  in 
a  moment.  It  may  have  been  that  the  subordinate  was  wanting  in 
respect  for  his  superior,  or  it  may  have  been  that  he  imagined,  in 
his  drunken  way,  that  Shelby  sought  to  threaten  him  with  higher 
authority.  At  any  rate  he  roared  out: 

"  What  do  I  care  for  your  information?  Let  the  devil  flyaway 
with  you  and  your  information.  It  is  the  same  old  game  you  Amer- 
icans are  forever  trying  to  play — robbing  to-day  and  killing  to-morrow 
— and  plundering,  plundering,  plundering  all  the  time.  You  shall 
not  go  to  Sonora,  and  you  shall  not  stay  here;  but  whatever  you  do 
you  shall  obey." 

Shelby's  face  darkened.  He  arose  as  he  spoke,  put  his  hat  on,  and 
walked  some  paces  toward  the  speaker.  His  voice  was  so  cold  and 
harsh  when  he  answered  him,  that  it  sounded  strange  and  unnatural: 

"I  am  mistaken  it  seems.  I  imagined  that  when  an  American 
soldier  called  upon  a  French  soldier,  he  was  at  least  visiting  a  gen- 
tleman. One  can  not  always  keep  his  hands  clean,  and  I  wash  mine 
of  you  because  you  are  a  slanderer  and  a  coward." 

Depreuil  laid  his  hand  upon  his  sword;  Shelby  unbottoned  the 
flap  of  his  revolver  scabbard.  A  rencontre  was  imminent.  Those 
of  Shelby's  men  who  were  with  him  massed  themselves  in  one  cor- 
ner, silent  and  threateniDg.  A  guard  of  soldiers  in  an  adjoining 
room  fell  into  line.  The  hush  of  expectancy  that  came  over  all  was 
ominous.  A  spark  would  have  exploded  a  magazine. 

Nothing  could  have  surpassed  the  scornful,  insulting  gesture  of 
Depreuil  as,  pointing  to  Shelby's  hat,  he  ordered  fiercely: 

"Remove  that." 

"  Only  to  beauty  and  to  God,"  was  the  stern,  calm  reply;  "  to  a 
coward,  never." 

It  seemed  for  a  moment  afterward  that  Depreuil  would  strike 
him.  He  looked  first  at  his  own  guard,  then  grasped  the  hilt  of  his 
sword,  and  finally  with  a  fierce  oath,  he  broke  out: 

"  Retire — retire  instantly — lest  I  outrage  all  hospitality  and  dis- 
honor you  in  my  own  house.  You  shall  pay  for  this — you  shall 
apologize  for  this." 

Depreuil  was  no  coward.  ,  Perhaps  there  was  no  braver  and  more 
impulsive  man  in  the  whole  French  army.  The  sequel  proved  this. 


310  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Shelby  went  calmly  from  liis  presence.  He  talked  about  various 
things,  but  never  about  the  difficulty  until  he  found  Governor 
Reynolds. 

11  Come  apart  with  me  a  few  moments,  Governor,"  he  said. 

Reynolds  was  alone  with  him  for  an  hour.  When  he  came  out 
he  went  straight  to  the  quarters  of  Col.  Depreuil.  It  did  not  take 
long  thereafter  to  arrange  the  terms  of  a  meeting.  Governor  Rey- 
nolds was  both  a  diplomatist  and  a  soldier,  and  so  at  daylight  the 
next  morning  they  were  to  fight  with  pistols  at  ten  paces.  In  this 
the  Frenchman  was  chivalrous,  notwithstanding  his  overbearing 
and  insulting  conduct  at  the  interview.  Shelby's  right  hand  and 
arm  had  been  disabled  by  a  severe  wound,  and  this  Depreuil  had 
noticed.  Indeed,  while  he  was  an  expert  with  the  sword,  Shelby's 
wrist  was  so  stiff  that  to  handle  a  sword  at  all  would  have  been 
impossible.  Depreuil,  therefore,  chose  the  pistol,  agreed  to  the 
distance,  talked  some  brief  moments  pleasantly  with  Governor  Rey- 
nolds, and  went  to  bed.  Shelby,  on  his  part,  had  even  fewer  prep- 
arations to  make  than  Depreuil.  Face  to  face  with  death  for  four 
long  years,  he  had  seen  him  in  so  many  shapes,  and  in  so  many 
places,  that  this  last  aspect  was  one  of  his  least  uncertain  and  terri- 
fying. 

The  duel,  however,  never  occurred.  That  night,  about  ten 
o'clock,  a  tremendous  clattering  of  sabres  and  galloping  of  horses 
were  heard,  and  some  who  went  out  to  ascertain  the  cause  returned 
with  the  information  that  General  Jeanningros,  on  an  inspecting  tour 
of  the  entire  northern  line  of  outposts,  had  arrived  in  Parras  with 
four  squadrons  of  the  Chasseurs  d'Af rique.  It  was  not  long  before 
all  the  details  of  the  interview  between  Depreuil  and  Shelby  were 
related  to  him.  His  quick  French  instinct  divined  in  a  moment 
that  other  alternative  waiting  for  the  daylight,  and  in  an  instant 
Depreuil  was  in  arrest,  the  violation  of  which  would  have  cost  him 
his  life.  Nor  did  it  end  with  arrest  simply.  After  fully  investigat- 
ing the  circumstances  connected  with  the  whole  affair,  Jeanningros 
required  Depreuil  to  make  a  free  and  frank  apology,  which  he  did 
most  cordially  and  sincerely,  regretting  as  much  as  a  sober  man 
could  the  disagreeable  and  overbearing  things  did  when  he  was  drunk. 

How  strange  a  thing  is  destiny.  About  one  year  after  this 
Parras  difficulty,  Depreuil  was  keeping  isolated  guard  above  Quere- 
tero,  threatened  by  heavy  bodies  of  advancing  Juaristas,  and  in 
imminent  peril  of  destruction.  Shelby,  no  longer  a  soldier  now  but 
a  trader,  knew  his  peril  and  knew  the  value  of  a  friendly  warning 
given  while  it  was  yet  time.  Taking  all  risks,  and  putting  to  the 
hazard  not  only  his  own  life,  but  the  lives  of  forty  others,  Shell 
rode  one  hundred  and  sixty-two  miles  in  twenty-six  hours, 
Depreuil,  rescued  his  detachment,  and  received  in  a  general  ord( 
from  Bazaine  the  thanks  of  the  French  army. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

BOTH  by  education  and  temperament  there  were  but  few  men 
better  fitted  to  accept  the  inevitable  gracefully  than  General  Shelby. 
It  needed  not  Depreuil's  testimony,  nor  the  immediate  confirmation 
thereof  by  Jeanningros,  to  convince  him  that  Bazaine's  order  was 
imperative.  True  enough,  he  might  have  marched  forth  from 
Parras  free  to  choose  whatsoever  route  he  pleased,  but  to  become 
en  rapport  with  the  Government  it  was  necessary  to  obey  Bazaine. 
So  when  the  good-byes  were  said,  and  the 'column  well  in  motion,  it 
was  not  toward  the  Pacific  that  the,  foremost  horsemen  rode  along. 

As  the  expedition  won  well  its  way  into  Mexico,  many  places  old 
in  local  song  and  story,  arose,  as  it  were,  from  the  past,  and  stood 
out,  clear-cut  and  crimson,  against  the  background  of  a  history  filled 
to  the  brim  with  rapine,  and  lust,  and  slaughter.  No  other  land 
under  the  sun  had  an  awakening  so  storm  begirt,  a  christening  so 
bloody  and  remorseless.  First  the  Spaniards  under  Cortez — swart, 
fierce,  long  of  broad-sword  and  limb ;  and  next  the  revolution, 
wherein  no  man  died  peacefully  or  under  the  shade  of  a  roof. 
There  was  Hidalgo,  the  ferocious  priest — shot.  Morelos,  with  these 
words  in  his  mouth — shot:  "  Lord,  if  I  have  done  well.  Thou 
knowest  it ;  if  ill,  to  Thy  infinite  mercy  I  commend  my  soul." 
Leonardo  Bravo,  scorning  to  fly — shot.  Nicholas  Bravo,  his  son, 
who  had  offered  a  thousand  captives  for  his  father's  life — shot. 
Matamoras — shot.  Mina — shot.  Guerrera — shot.  Then  came  the 
Republic — bloodier,  bitterer,  crueller.  Victoria,  its  first  president — 
shot.  Mexia — shot.  Pedraza — shot.  Santmanet — shot  by  General 
Ampudia,  who  cut  off  his  head,  boiled  it  in  oil,  and  stuck  it  up  on 
a  pole  to  blacken  in  the  sun.  Herrera — shot.  Paredes — shot.  All 
of  them  shot,  these  Mexican  presidents,  except  Santa  Anna,  who 
lost  a  leg  by  the  French  and  a  country  by  the  Americans.  Among 
his  game-cocks  and  his  mistresses  to-day  in  Havana,  he  will  see  never 
again,  perhaps,  the  white  brow  of  Orizava  from  the  southern  sea, 
and  rest  never  again  under  the  orange  and  the  banana  trees  about 
Cordova. 

It  was  a  land  old  in  the  world's  history  that  these  men  rode  into, 
and  a  land  stained  in  the  world's  crimes — a  land  filled  full  of  the 
sun  and  the  tropics.  What  wonder,  then,  that  a  deed  was  done  on 
the  fifth  day's  marching  that  had  about  it  the  splendid  dash  and 
bravado  of  mediaeval  chivalry. 

Keeping  outermost  guard  one  balmy  evening  far  beyond  the 
silent  camp  of  the  dreaming  soldiers,  James  Wood  and  Yandell 
Blackwell  did  vigilant  duty  in  front  of  the  reserve.  The  fire  had 
gone  out  when  the  cooking  was  done,  and  the  earth  smelt  sweet 
with  grasses,  and  the  dew  on  the  grasses.  A  low  pulse  of  song 

311 


312  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

broke  on  the  bearded  faces  of  the  cacti,  and  sobbed  in  fading 
cadences  as  the  waves  that  come  in  from  the  salt  sea,  seeking  the 
south  wind.  This  was  the  vesper  strain  of  the  katydids,  sad,  solac- 
ing, rhythmical. 

Before  the  wary  eyes  of  the  sentinels  a  figure  rose  up,  waving 
his  blanket  as  a  truce  flag.  Encouraged,  he  came  into  the  lines, 
not  fully  assured  of  his  bearings — frightened  a  little,  anti  prone  to 
be  communicative  by  way  of  propitiation. 

Had  the  Americans  heard  of  Encarnacion  ? 

No,  they  had  not  heard  of  Encaraacion.  What  was  Encar- 
nacion? 

The  Mexican,  bora  robber  and  devout  Catholic,  crossed  himself. 
Not  to  have  heard  of  Encarnacion  was  next  in  infamy  to  have 
slaughtered  a  priest.  Horror  made  him  garrulous.  Fear,  if  it  does 
not  paralyze,  has  been  known  to  make  the  dumb  speak. 

Encarnacion  was  a  hacienda,  and  a  hacienda,  literally  translated, 
is  a  plantation  with  royal  stables,  and  acres  of  corral,  and  abounding 
water,  and  long  rows  of  male  and  female  slave  cabins,  and  a  Don 
of  an  owner,  who  has  music,  and  singing  maidens,  and  pillars  of 
silver  dollars,  and  a  passionate  brief  life,  wherein  wine  and  women 
rise  upon  it  at  last  and  cut  it  short.  Even  if  no  ill  luck  intervenes, 
the  pace  to  the  devil  is  a  terrible  one,  and  superb  riders  though 
they  are,  the  best  sent  in  the  saddle  sways  heavily  at  last,  and  the 
truest  hand  on  the  rein  relaxes  ere  manhood  reaches  its  noon  and 
the  shadows  of  the  west. 

Luis  Enrico  Rodriguez  owned  Encarnacion,  a  Spaniard  born,  and 
a  patron  saint  of  all  the  robbers  who  lived  in  the  neighboring 
mountains,  and  of  all  the  senoritas  who  plaited  their  hair  by  the 
banks  of  his  arroyos  and  hid  but  charily  their  dusky  bodies  in  the 
limpid  waves.  The  hands  of  the  French  had  been  laid  upon  him 
lightly.  For  forage  and  foray  Dupin  had  never  penetrated  the 
mountain  line  which  shut  in  his  guarded  dominions  from  the  world 
beyond.  When  strangers  came  he  gave  them  greeting;  when 
soldiers  came,  he  gave  them  of  his  flocks  and  herds,  his  wines  and 
treasures. 

There  was  one  pearl,  however,  a  pearl  of  great  price,  whom  no 
stranger  eyes  had  ever  seen,  whom  no  stranger  tongue  had  ever 
spoken  a  fair  good  morning.  The  slaves  called  it  a  spirit,  the 
confessor  a  sorceress,  *,he  lazy  gossips  a  Gringo  witch,  the  man  who 
knew  best  of  all  called  it  wife,  and  yet  no  sprinkling  of  water  or 
blessing  of  church  had  made  the  name  a  holy  one. 

RDiriguez  owned  Eacarnacion  and  Encarnacion  owned  a  skele- 
ton. This  much  James  Wood  and  Yandell  Blackwell  knew  when 
the  half  goat-herder  and  robber  had  told  but  half  his  story.  When 
he  had  finished  his  other  half,  this  much  remained  of  it: 

Years  before  in  Sonora  a  California  hunter  of  gold  had  found 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAK.  313 

his  way  to  some  streams  where  a  beautiful  Indian  woman  lived  with 
her  tribe.  They  were  married,  and  a  daughter  was  born  to  them, 
having  her  father's  Saxon  hair,  and  her  mother's  eyes  of  tropical 
dusk.  From  youth  to  womanhood  this  daughter  had  been  educated 
in  San  Francisco.  When  she  returned  she  was  an  American,  hav- 
ing nothing  of  her  Indian  ancestry  but  its  color.  Even  her  mother's 
language  was  unknown  to  her.  One  day  in  Guaymas,  Rodriguez 
looked  upon  her  as  a  vision.  He  was  a  Spaniard  and  a  millionaire, 
and  he  believed  all  things  possible.  The  wooing  was  long,  but  the 
web,  like  the  web  of  Penelope,  was  never  woven.  He  failed  in  his 
eloquence,  in  his  money,  in  his  passionate  entreaties,  in  his  strata- 
gems, in  his  lyings  in  wait  —  in  everything  that  savored  of  plead- 
ing or  purchase.  Some  men  come  often  to  their  last  dollar — 
never  to  the  end  of  their  audacity.  If  fate  should  choose  to  back 
a  lover  against  the  world,  fate  would  give  long  odds  on  a  Spaniard. 

At  last,  when  everything  else  had  been  tried,  Rodriguez  deter- 
mined upon  abduction.  This  was  a  common  Mexican  custom, 
dangerous  only  in  its  failure.  No  matter  what  the  risk,  no  matter 
how  monstrous  the  circumstances,  no  matter  how  many  corpses  lay 
in  the  pathway  leading  up  from  plotting  to  fulfillment,  so  only  in 
the  end  the  lusts  of  the  man  triumphed  over  the  virtue  of  the 
woman.  Gathering  together  hastily  a  band  of  bravos  whose  devo- 
tion was  in  exact  proportion  to  the  dollars  paid,  Rodriguez  seized 
upon  the  maiden,  returning  late  one  night  from  the  opera,  and 
bore  her  away  with  all  speed  toward  Encarnacion.  The  Califor- 
nian,  born  of  a  tiger  race  that  invariably  dies  hard,  mounted  such 
few  men  as  loved  him  and  followed  on  furiously  in  pursuit.  Bereft 
of  his  young,  he  had  but  one  thing  to  do  —  kill. 

Fixed  as  fate  and  as  relentless,  the  race  went  on.  Turning  once 
fairly  at  bay,  pursued  and  pMrsuers  met  in  a  death-grapple.  The 
Californian  died  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  leaving  stern  and  stark 
traces  behind  of  his  terrible  prowess.  What  cared  Rodriguez,  how- 
ever, fora  bravo  more  or  less?  The  woman  was  safe,  and  on  his 
own  garments  nowhere  did  the  strife  leave  aught  of  crimson  or  dust. 
Once  well  in  her  chamber — a  mistress,  perhaps — a  prisoner,  cer- 
tainly, she  beat  her  wings  in  vain  against  the  strong  bars  of  her 
palace,  for  all  that  gold  could  give  or  passion  suggest  had  been 
poured  out  at  the  feet  of  Inez  Walker.  Servants  came  and  went  at 
her  bidding.  The  priest  blessed  and  beamed  upon  her.  The 
captor  was  fierce  by  turns,  and  in  the  dust  at  her  shrine,  by 
turns,  but  amid  it  all  the  face  of  a  murdered  father  rose  up 
in  her  memory,  and  prayers  for  vengeance  upon  her  father's  mur- 
derer broke  ever  from  her  unrelenting  lips.  At  times  fearful 
cries  came  out  from  the  woman's  chamber.  The  domestics  heard 
them  and  crossed  themselves.  Once  in  a  terrible  storm  she  fled  from 
her  thraldom  and  wandered  frantically  about  until  she  sank  down 


314  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

insensible.  She  was  found  alone  with  her  beauty  and  her  agony. 
Rodriguez  lifted  her  in  his  arms  and  bore  her  back  to  her  chamber, 
A  fever  followed,  scorching  her  wan  face  until  it  was  pitiful,  and 
shredding  away  her  Saxon  hair  until  all  its  gloss  was  gone  and  all 
its  silken  rippling  stranded.  She  lived  on,  however,  and  under  the 
light  of  a  Southern  sky,  and  by  the  fitful  embers  of  a  soldier's  bivouac, 
a  robber  goat-herd  was  telling  the  story  of  an  American's  daughter 
to  an  American's  son. 

"  Was  it  far  to  Encarnacion?" 

Jim  Wood  asked  the  question  in  his  broken  Spanish  way,  look- 
ing out  to  the  front,  musing. 

"  By  to-morrow  night,  Senor,  you  will  be  there." 

"  Have  you  told  the  straight  truth,  Mexican?  " 

"  As  the  Virgin  is  true,  Senor." 

4 'So  be  it.  You  will  sleep  this  night  at  the  outpost.  To-morrow 
we  shall  see." 

The  Mexican  smoked  a  cigarrito  and  went  to  bed.  Whether  he 
slept  or  not,  he  made  no  sign.  Full  confidence  very  rarely  lays  hold 
of  an  Indian's  heart. 

Replenishing  the  fire,  Wood  and  Blackwell  sat  an  hour  together 
in  silence.  Beyond  the  sweeping,  untiring  glances  of  the  eyes,  the 
men  were  as  statues.  Finally  Blackwell  spoke  to  Wood: 

"  Of  what  are  you  thinking  ? " 

"  Encarnacion.    And  you  ?  " 

' '  Inez  Walker.    It  is  the  same. " 

The  Mexican  turned  in  his  blanket,  muttering.  Wood's  revolver 
covered  him  : 

"Lie  still,"  he  said,  "  and  muffle  up  your  ears.  You  may  not 
understand  English,  but  you  understand  this,"  and  he  waved  the 
pistol  menacingly  before  his  eyes.  ' '  One  never  does  know  when 
these  yellow  snakes  are  asleep." 

"  No  matter,"  said  Blackwell,  sententiously;  "  they  never  sleep." 

It  was  daylight  again,  and  although  the  two  men  had  not  unfolded 
their  blankets,  they  were  as  fresh  as  the  dew  on  the  grasses — 
fresh  enough  to  have  planned  an  enterprise  as  daring  and  as  des- 
perate as  anything  ever  dreamed  of  in  romance  or  set  forth  in  fable. 

The  to-morrow  night  of  the  Mexican  had  come,  and  there  lay 
Encarnacion  in  plain  view  under  the  starlight.  Rodriguez  had 
kept  aloft  from  the  encampment.  Through  the  last  hours  of  the 
afternoon  wide  hatted  rancheros  had  ridden  up  to  the  corral  in 
unusual  numbers,  had  dismounted  and  had  entered  in.  Shelby, 
who  took  note  of  everything  took  note  also  of  this. 

"They  do  not  come  out,"  he  said.  "There  are  some  signs  of  prep- 
aration about,  and  some  fears  manifested  against  a  night  attack. 
By  whom?  Save  our  grass  and  goats  I  know  of  no  reason  why 
foraging  should  be  heavier  now  than  formally," 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  315 

Twice  Jim  Wood  had  been  on  the  point  of  telling  him  the  whole 
story,  and  twice  his  heart  had  failed  him.  Shelby  was  getting 
sterner  of  late,  and  the  reins  were  becoming  to  be  drawn  tighter  and 
tighter.  Perhaps  it  was  necessary.  Certainly  since  the  last  furious 
attack  by  the  guerrillas  'over  beyond  Parras,  those  who  had  looked 
upon  discipline  as  an  ill-favored  mistress,  had  ended  by  embracing 
her. 

As  the  picquets  were  being  told  off  for  duty,  Wood  came  close 
to  Blackwell  and  whispered  : 

"The  men  will  be  ready  by  twelve.  They  are  volunteers  and 
splendid  fellows.  How  many  of  them  will  be  shot?  " 

"  Quien  sabe?  Those  who  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the 
sword." 

"  Bah!    When  you  take  a  text,  take  one  without  a  woman  in  it." 

"  I  shall  not  preach  to-night.  Shelby  will  do  that  to-morrow  to 
all  who  come  forth  scathless." 

With  all  his  gold,  and  his  leagues  of  cattle  and  land,  Rodriguez 
had  only  for  eagle's  nest  an  adobe  eyrie.  Hither  his  dove  had  been 
carried.  On  the  right  of  this  long  row  of  cabins  ran  the  quarters  of 
his  peons.  Near  to  the  great  gate  were  acres  of  corral.  Within  this 
saddled  steeds  were  in  stall,  lazily  feeding.  A  Mexican  loves  his 
horse,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  he  does  not  starve  him.  This 
night,  however,  Rodriguez  was  bountiful.  For  fight  and  night  both 
men  and  animals  must  not  go  hungry.  On  the  top  of  the  main 
building  a  kind  of  tower  lifted  itself  up.  It  was  roomy  and  spacious 
and  flanked  by  steps  that  clung  to  it  tenaciously.  In  the  tower  a 
light  shone,  while  all  below  and  about  it  was  hushed  and  impene- 
trable. High  adobe  walls  encircled  the  mansion,  the  cabins,  the 
corral,  the  acacia  trees,  the  fountain  that  splashed  plaintively,  and 
the  massive  portal  which  had  mystery  written  all  over  its  rugged 
outlines. 

It  may  have  been  twelve  o'clock.  The  nearest  picquet  was 
beyond  Encarnacion,  and  the  camp  guards  were  only  for  sentinel 
duty.  Free  to  come  and  go,  the  men  had  no  watchword  for  the 
night.  None  was  needed. 

Suddenly,  and  if  one  had  looked  up  from  his  blankets,  he  might 
have  seen  a  long,  dark  line  standing  out  against  the  sky.  This  line 
did  not  move. 

It  may  have  been  twelve  o'clock.  There  was  no  moon,  yet  the 
stars  gave  light  enough  for  the  men  to  see  each  other's  faces  and  to 
recognize  one  another.  It  was  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  camp 
to  the  hacienda,  and  about  the  same  distance  to  the  picquet  posts 
from  where  the  soldiers  had  formed.  In  the  ranks  one  might  have 
seen  such  campaigners — stern  and  rugged  and  scant  of  speech  in 
danger — as  McDougall,  Boswell,  Armistead,  Winship,  Ras  Woods, 
Macey,  Vines,  Kirtley,  Blackwell,  Tom  Rudd,  Crockett,  Collins, 


316  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Jack  Williams,  Owens,  Timberlake,  Darnall,  Johnson  and  the  two 
Berrys,  Richard  and  Isaac.  Jim  Wood  stood  forward  by  right  as 
leader.  All  knew  he  would  carry  them  far  enough;  some  may 
have  thought,  perhaps,  that  he  would  carry  them  too  far. 

The  line,  hushed  now  and  ominous,  still  stood  as  a  wall.  From 
front  to  rear  Wood  walked  along  its  whole  length,  speaking  some 
low  and  cheering  words. 

"Boys, "he  commenced,  "none  of  us  know  what  is  waiting 
inside  the  corral.  Mexicans  fight  well  in  the  dark,  it  is  said,  and 
see  better  than  wolves,  but  we  must  have  that  American  woman 
safe  out  of  their  hands,  or  we  must  burn  the  buildings.  If  the 
hazard  is  too  great  for  any  of  you,  step  out  of  the  ranks.  What  we 
are  about  to  do  must  needs  be  done  quickly.  Shelby  sleeps  little  of 
late,  and  may  be,  even  at  this  very  moment,  searching  through  the 
camp  for  some  of  us.  Let  him  find  even  so  much  as  one  blanket 
empty,  and  from  the  heroes  of  a  night  attack  we  shall  become  its 
criminals."  ' 

Sweeny,  a  one-armed  soldier  who  had  served  under  Walker  in 
Nicaragua,  and  who  was  in  the  front  always  in  hours  of  enterprise 
or  peril,  replied  to  Wood: 

"  Since  time  is  valuable,  lead  on." 

The  line  put  itself  in  motion.  Two  men  sent  forward  to  try  the 
great  gate,  returned  rapidly.  Wood  met  them. 

"Well?"  he  said. 

"  It  is  dark  all  about  there,  and  the  gate  itself  is  as  strong  as  a 
mountain." 

"  We  shall  batter  it  down." 

A  beam  was  brought — a  huge  piece  of  timber  wrenched  from  the 
upright  fastenings  of  a  large  irrigating  basin.  Twenty  men  manned 
this  and  advanced  upon  the  gate.  In  an  instant  thereafter  there 
were  tremendous  and  resounding  blows,  shouts,  cries,  oaths  and 
musket  shots.  Before  this  gigantic  battering-ram  adobe  walls  and 
iron  fastenings  gave  way.  The  bars  of  the  barrier  were  broken  as 
reeds,  the  locks  were  crushed,  the  hinges  were  beaten  in,  and  with  a 
fierce  yell  and  rush  the  Americans  swarmed  to  the  attack  of  the 
main  building.  The  light  in  the  tower  guided  them.  A  legion  of 
devils  seemed  to  have  broken  loose.  The  stabled  steeds  of  the 
Mexicans  reared  and  plunged  in  the  infernal  din  of  the  fight,  and 
dashed  hither  and  thither,  masterless  and  riderless. 

The  camp  where  Shelby  rested  was  alarmed  instantly.  The 
shrill  notes  of  the  bugle  were  heard  over  all  the  tumult,  and  with 
them  the  encouraging  voice  of  Wood. 

"Make  haste!  make  haste,  men,  for  in  twenty  minutes  we  will 
be  between  two  fires! " 

Crouching  in  the  stables,  and  pouring  forth  a  murderous  fire 
from  their  ambush  in  the  darkness,  some  twenty  rancheros  made  sud-y 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  317 

den  and  desperate  battle.  Leading  a  dozen  men  against  them,  Macy 
and  Ike  Berry  charged  through  the  gloom  and  upon  the  unknown, 
guided  only  by  the  lurid  and  fitful  flashes  of  the  muskets.  When 
the  work  was  over  the  corral  no  longer  vomited  its  flame.  Silence 
reigned  there — that  fearful  and  ominous  silence  fit  only  for  the  dead 
who  died  suddenly. 

The  camp,  no  longer  in  sleep,  had  become  menacing.  Short 
words  of  command  came  out  of  it,  and  the  tread  of  men  forming 
rapidly  for  battle.  Some  skirmishers,  even  in  the  very  first  moments 
of  the  combat,  had  been  thrown  forward  quite  to  the  hacienda. 
These  were  almost  nude,  and  stood  out  under  the  starlight  as  white 
spectres,  threatening  yet  undefined.  They  had  guns  at  least,  and 
pistols,  and  in  so  much  they  were  mortal.  These  spectres  had  rea- 
son, too.  Close  upon  the  fragments  of  the  great  gate,  and  looking 
in  upon  the  waves  of  the  fight  as  they  rose  and  fell,  they  yet  did  not 
fire  They  believed,  at  least,  that  some  of  their  kindred  and  com- 
rades were  there. 

For  a  brief  ten  minutes  more  the  combat  raged  evenly.  Cheered 
by  the  voice  of  Rodriguez,  and  stimulated  by  his  example,  his 
retainers  clung  bitterly  to  the  fight.  The  doors  were  as  redoubts. 
The  windows  were  as  miniature  casemates.  Once  on  the  steps  of 
the  tower  Rodriguez  showed  himself  for  a  second.  A  dozen  of  the 
best  shots  in  the  attacking  party  fired  at  him.  No  answer  save  a 
curse  of  defiance  so  harsh  and  savage  that  it  sounded  unnatural  even 
in  the  roar  of  the  furious  hurricane. 

There  was  a  lull.  Every  Mexican  combatant  outside  the  main 
building  had  been  killed  or  wounded.  Against  the  massive  walls 
of  the  adobes  the  rifle  bullets  made  no  headway.  It  was  murder 
longer  to  oppose  flesh  to  masonry.  Tom  Rudd  was  killed,  young 
and  dauntless;  Crockett,  the  hero  of  the  Lampasas  duel,  was  dead; 
Rogers  was  dead;  the  boy  Pro  vines  was  dead;  Matterhorn,  a  stark 
giant  of  a  German,  shot  four  times,  was  breathing  his  last;  and  the 
wounded  were  on  all  sides,  some  hard  hit,  and  some  bleeding,  yet 
fighting  on. 

"  Once  more  to  the  beam,"  shouted  Wood. 

Again  the  great  battering-ram  crashed  against  the  great  door 
leading  into  the  main  hall,  and  again  there  was  a  rending  away  of 
iron  and  wood  and  mortar.  Through  splintered  timber  and  over 
crumbling  and  jagged  masonry  the  besiegers  poured.  The 
building  was  gained.  Once  well  withinside,  the  storm  of  revolver 
balls  was  terrible.  There  personal  prowess  told,  and  there  the 
killing  was  quick  and  desperate.  At  the  head  of  his  hunted 
following,  Rodriguez  fought  like  the  Spaniard  he  was,  stubbornly, 
and  to  the  last.  No  lamps  lit  the  savage  melee.  While  the 
Mexicans  stood  up  to  be  shot  at,  they  were  shot  where  they  stood. 
The  most  of  them  died  there.  Some  few  broke  away  toward  the 


;318  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

last  and  escaped,  for  no  pursuit  was  attempted,  and  no  man  cared 
liow  many  fled  nor  how  fast.  It  was  the  woman  the  Americans 
wanted.  Gold  and  silver  ornaments  were  everywhere,  and  precious 
tapestry  work,  and  many  rare  and  quaint  and  woven  things,  but  the 
pawder-blackened  and  blood-stained  hands  of  the  assailants  touched 
not  one  of  these.  It  was  too  dark  to  tell  who  killed  Rodriguez.  To 
the  last  his  voice  could  be  heard  cheering  on  his  men,  and  calling 
down  God's  vengeance  on  the  Gringos.  Those  who  fired  at  him 
specially  fired  at  his  voice,  for  the  smoke  was  stifling,  and  the 
sulphurous  fumes  of  the  gunpowder  almost  unbearable.  • 

When  the  hacienda,  was  won  Shelby  had  arrived  with  the  rest  of 
the  command.  He  had  mistaken  the  cause  of  the  attack,  and  his 
mood  was  of  that  kind  which  but  seldom  came  to  him,  but  which, 
when  it  did  come,  had  several  times  before  made  some  of  his  most 
hardened  and  unruly  followers  tremble  and  turn  pale.  He  had 
caused  the  hacienda  to  be  surrounded  closely,  and  he  had  come  alone 
to  the  doorway,  a  look  of  wrathful  menace  on  his  usually  placid  face. 

"Who  among  you  have  done  this  thing?"  he  asked,  in  tones 
that  were  calm  yet  full  and  vibrating. 

No  answer.     The  men  put  up  their  weapons. 

"  Speak,  some  of  you.  Let  me  not  find  cowards  instead  of  plun- 
derers, lest  I  finish  the  work  upon  you  all  that  the  Mexicans  did  so 
poorly  upon  a  few." 

Jim  Wood  came  forward  to  the  front  then.  Covered  with  blood 
and  powder-stains,  he  seemed  in  sorry  plight  to  make  much  head- 
way in  defense  of  the  night's  doings,  yet  he  told  the  tale  as  straight 
as  the  goat-herd  had  told  it  to  him,  and  in  such  simple  soldier 
fashion,  taking  all  the  sin  upon  his  own  head  and  hands,  that  even 
the  stern  features  of  his  commander  relaxed  a  little,  and  he  fell  to 
musing.  It  may  have  been  that  the  desperate  nature  of  the  enter- 
prise appealed  more  strongly  to  his  own  feelings  than  he  was  willing 
that  his  men  should  know,  or  it  may  have  been  that  his  set  purpose 
softened  a  little  when  he  saw  so  many  of  his  bravest  and  best  sol- 
diers come  out  from  the  darkness  and  stand  in  silence  about  their 
leader,  Wood,  some  of  them  sorely  wounded,  and  all  of  them  cov- 
ered with  the  signs  of  the  desperate  fight,  but  certain  it  is  that  when 
he  spoke  again  his  voice  was  more  relenting  and  assuring: 

"  And  where  is  the  woman? " 

Through  all  the  terrible  moments  of  the  combat  the  light  in  the 
tower  had  burned  as  a  beacon.  Perhaps  in  those  few  seconds  when 
Rodriguez  stood  alone  upon  the  steps  leading  up  to  the  doves'  nest, 
in  a  tempest  of  fire  and  smoke,  the  old  love  might  have  been  busy  at 
his  heart,  and  the  old  yearning  strong  within  him  to  make  at  last 
some  peace  with  her  for  whom  he  had  so  deeply  sinned,  and  for 
whose  sake  he  was  soon  to  so  dreadfully  suffer.  Death  makes  many 
a  sad  atonement,  and  though  late  in  coming  at  times  to  the  evil  and 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  319 

the  good  alike,  it  may  be  that  when  the  records  of  the  heart  are  writ 
beyond  the  wonderful  river,  much  that  was  dark  on  earth  will  be 
bright  in  eternity,  and  much  that  was  cruel  and  fierce  in  finite  judg- 
ment will  be  made  fair  and  beautiful  when  it  is  known  how  love 
gathered  up  the  threads  of  destiny,  and  how  all  the  warp  that  was 
blood-stained,  and  all  the  woof  that  had  bitterness  and  tears  upon 
it,  could  be  traced  to  a  woman's  hand. 

Grief-stricken,  prematurely  old,  yet  beautiful  even  amid  the  lone- 
liness of  her  situation,  Inez  Walker  came  into  the  presence  of 
Shelby,  a  queen.  Some  strands  of  gray  were  in  her  glossy,  golden 
hair.  The  liquid  light  of  her  large  dark  eyes  had  long  ago  been 
quenched  in  tears.  The  form  that  had  once  been  so  full  and  perfect, 
was  now  bent  and  fragile;  but  there  was  such  a  look  of  mournful 
tenderness  in  her  eager,  questioning  face  that  the  men  drew  back 
from  her  presence  instinctively  and  left  her  alone  with  their  Gene- 
ral He  received  her  commands  as  if  she  were  bestowing  a  favor 
upon  him,  listening  as  a  brother  might  until  all  her  wishes  were 
made  known.  These  he  promised  to  carry  Out  to  the  letter,  and 
how  well  he  did  so,  this  narrative  will  further  tell.  For  the  rest  of 
that  night  she  was  left  alone  with  her  dead.  Recovered  somewhat 
from  the  terrors  of  the  wild  attack,  her  woman  came  back  to  her, 
weeping  over  the  slain  and  praying  piteously  for  their  souls  as  well. 

"When  the  dead  had  been  buried,  when  the  wounded  had  been 
cared  for,  and  when  Wood  had  received  a  warning  which  he  will 
remember  to  his  dying  day,  the  column  started  once  more  on  its 
march  to  the  south.  With  the  guard  of  honor  regularly  detailed  to 
protect  the  families  of  those  who  were  traveling  with  the  expedi- 
tion, there  was  another  carriage  new  to  the  men.  None  sought  to 
know  its  occupant.  The  night's  work  had  left  upon  all  a  sorrow 
that  was  never  entirely  obliterated — a  memory  that  even  now, 
through  the  lapse  of  long  years,  comes  back  to  all  who  witnessed  it 
as  a  memory  that  brings  with  it  more  of  real  regret  than  gladness. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  great  guns  were  roaring  furiously  at  Matehuala  when  the 
expedition  came  within  hearing  distance  of  its  outposts.  Night  had 
fallen  over  the  city  and  its  twenty  thousand  inhabitants  before  the 
advanced  guard  of  the  column  had  halted  for  further  orders.  The 
unknown  was  ahead.  All  day,  amid  the  mountains,  there  had  come 
upon  the  breeze  the  deep,  prolonged  rumbling  of  artillery  firing; 
and  as  the  column  approached  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  city,  there 
were  mingled  with  the  hoarse  voices  of  the  cannon  the  nearer  and 
deadlier  rattle  of  incessant  musketry. 

Shelby  rode  up  to  the  head  of  his  advance  and  inquired  the 
cause  of  the  heavy  firing.  No  one  could  tell  him. 

"  Then  we  will  camp,"  he  said.  "  Afterward  a  few  scouts  shall 
determine  definitely." 

The  number  of  scguts  detailed  for  the  service  was  not  large — 
probably  sixty  all  told.  These  were  divided  into  four  detachments, 
each  detachment  being  sent  out  in  a  direction  different  from  the 
others.  James  Kirtly  led  one,  Dick  Collins  another,  Jo.  Macey  the 
third  and  Dorsey  the  fourth.  They  were  to  bring  word  back  of  the 
meaning  of  all  that  infernal  noise  and  din,  that  had  been  raging  about 
Matehuala  the  whole  day  through.  And  they  did  it. 

Kirtly  took  the  main  road  running  down  squarely  into  the  city. 
A  piquet  post  barred  his  further  progress.  Making  a  circuit  cautiously, 
he  gained  the  rear  of  this,  and  came  upon  a  line  of  soldiers  in 
bivouac.  In  the  shadow  himself,  the  light  of  the  campfires  revealed 
to  him  the  great  forms  and  the  swarthy  countenances  of  a  battalion  of 
guerrillas.  Further  beyond  there  were  other  fires  at  which  other  bat- 
talions were  cooking  and  resting. 

Collins  was  less  furtunate  in  this  that  he  had  to  fight  a  little. 
Warned  against  using  weapons  except  in  self-defense,  he  had  drawn 
up  his-small  detachment  under  the  cover  o  f  a  clump  of  niesquitebushes 
watching  the  road  along  which  men  where  riding  to  and  fro.  His 
ambush  was  discovered  and  a  company  of  cavalry  came  galloping 
down  to  uncover  his  position.  Halted  twice  they  still  continued  to 
advance.  There  was  no  help  for  it  save  a  point  blank  volley,  and  this 
was  given  with  a  will  and  in  the  darkness.  Some  saddles  were  emp- 
tied, and  one  riderless  horse  dashed  into  the  midst  of  the  Americans, 
this  was  secured  and  carried  into  camp. 

Macey  made  a  wide  detour  upon  the  left  of  the  road,  and  across 
some  cultivated  fields  in  which  were  a  few  huts  filled  with  peons. 
Five  of  these  peons  were  captured  and  brought  back  to  Shelby. 
Questioned  closely,  they  revealed  the  whole  situation.  Matehuala 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  321 

was  held  by  a  French  garrison  numbering  five  hundred  of  the 
Eighty-second  Infantry  of  the  line — a  weak  detachment  enough  for 
such  an  exposed  outpost.  These  five  hundred  Frenchmen  were 
commanded  by  Major  Henry  Pierron,  an  officer  of  extreme  youth 
and  dauntless  enterprise. 

Shelby  called  a  council  of  his  officers  at  once.  The  peons  had 
further  told  him  that  the  besieging  force  was  composed  of  about  two 
thousand  guerrillas,  under  Colonel  Escobeda,  brother  of  that  other 
one  who  laughed  and  was  glad  exceedingly,  when,  Maximilian  fell 
butchered  and  betrayed,  at  Queretero.  At  daylight  the  garrison 
was  to  be  attacked  again,  and  so  what  was  to  be  done  had  great  need 
to  be  done  quickly. 

The  officers  came  readily,  and  Shelby  addressed  them. 

"  We  have  marched  far,  we  have  but  scant  money,  our  horses 
are  foot-sore  and  much  in  need  of  shoes,  and  Matehuala  is  across 
the  only  road  for  scores  of  miles  in  any  direction  that  leads  to  Mex- 
ico. Shall  we  turn  back  and  take  another?  " 

"  No!  no! "  in  a  kind  of  angry  murmur  from  the  men. 

"  But  there  are  two  thousand  Mexican  soldiers,  or  robbers,  who 
are  next  of  kin,  across  this  road,  and  we  may  have  to  fight  a  little. 
Are  you  tired  of  fighting?  " 

"Lead  us  on  and  see,"  was  the  cry, and  this  time  his  officers  had 
begun  to  catch  his  meaning.  They  understood  now  that  he  was 
tempting  them.  Already  determined  in  his  own  mind  to  attack  the 
Mexicans  at  daylight,  he  simply  wished  to  see  how  much  of  his  own 
desire  was  in  the  bosoms  of  his  subordinates. 

"One  other  thing,"  said  Shelby,  "before  we  separate.  From 
among  you  I  want  a  couple  of  volunteers — two  men  who  will  take 
their  lives  in  their  hands  and  find  an  entrance  into  Matehuala.  I 
must  communicate  with  Pierron  before  daylight.  It  is  necessary 
that  he  should  know  how  near  there  is  succor  to  him,  and  how 
furiously  we  mean  to  charge  them  in  the  morning.  Who  will  go  ? 

All  who  were  present  volunteered,  stepping  one  pace  nearer  to 
their  commander  in  a  body.  He  chose  but  two — James  Cundiff 
and  Elias  Hodge — two  men  fit  for  any  mission  no  matter  how  forlorn 
or  desperate. 

By  this  time  they  had  learned  enough  of  Spanish  to  buy  meat 
and  bread— not  enough  to  pass  undetected  an  outlying  guerrilla  with 
an  eye  like  a  lynx  and  an  ear  keener  than  a  coyote's.  They  started, 
however,  just  the  same.  Shelby  would  write  nothing. 

"A  document  might  hang  you,"  he  said,  "  and  besides,  Pierron 
can  not,  in  all  probability,  read  my  English.  Go,  and  may  God  pro- 
tect  you." 

These  two  dauntless  men  then  shook  hands  with  their  com- 
mander, and  with  the  few  comrades  nearest.  After  that  they  dis- 
appeared in  the  unknown.  It  was  a  cloudy  »ight  and  some  wind 


3'32  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

blew.  In  this  they  were  greatly  favored.  The  darkness  hid  the 
clear  outlines  of  their  forms,  and  the  wind  blended  the  tread  of 
their  footsteps  with  the  rustling  of  the  leaves  and  the  grasses. 
Two  revolvers  and  a  Sharps'  carbine  each  made  up  the  equipment. 
Completely  ignorant  of  the  entire  topography  of  the  country,  they 
yet  had  a  kind  of  vague  idea  of  the  direction  in  which  Matehuala 
lay.  They  knew  that  the  main  road  was  hard  beset  by  guerrillas, 
and  tfcat  upon  the  right  a  broken  and  precipitous  chain  of  mount- 
ains encircled  the  city  and  made  headway  in  that  direction  well 
nigh  impossible.  They  chose  the  left,  therefore,  as  the  least  of 
three  evils. 

It  was  about  midnight,  and  it  was  two  long  miles  to  Matehuala. 
Shelby  required  them  to  enter  into  the  city;  about  their  coming 
back  he  was  not  so  particular.  Cundiff  led,  Hodge  followed  in 
Indian  fashion.  At  intervals  both  men  would  draw  themselves  up 
and  listen,  long  and  anxiously.  At  last  after  crossing  a  wide  field, 
intersected  by  ditches  and  but  recently  plowed,  they  came  to  a  road 
which  had  a  mesquite  hedge  on  one  side,  and  a  fence  with  a  few 
straggling  poles  in  it,  on  the  other.  Gliding  stealthily  down  this 
road,  the  glimmering  of  a  light  in  front  warned  them  of  immediate 
danger.  In  avoiding  this  they  came  upon  another  house,  and  in 
going  still  further  to  the  left  to  avoid  this  also,  they  found  them- 
selves in  the  midst  of  a  kind  of  extended  village,  one  of  those  inter- 
minable suburbs  close  to  yet  disconnected  from  all  Mexican  cities. 

Wherever  there  was  a  ticnda — that  is  to  say,  a  place  where  the 
fiery  native  drink  of  the  country  is  sold — two  or  three  saddle  horses 
might  have  been  seen.  In  whispers,  the  men  conferred  together. 

"  They  are  here,"  said  Hodge. 

"They  seem  to  be  everywhere,"  answered  Cundiff. 

"  What  do  you  propose  ?  " 

"To  glide  quietly  through.  I  have  a  strong  belief  that  beyond 
this  village  we  shall  find  Matehuala." 

They  struck  out  boldly  again,  passing  near  to  a  tienda  in  which 
there  were  music  and  dancing.  When  outside  of  the  glare  of  the 
light  which  streamed  from  its  open  door,  the  sound  of  horses'  feet 
coming  down  the  road  they  had  just  traveled  called  for  instant  con- 
cealment. They  crouched  low  behind  a  large  maguey  plant  and 
waited.  The  horsemen  came  right  onward,  laughing  loud  and 
boisterously.  They  did  not  halt  in  the  village,  but  rode  on  by  the 
ambush  and  so  close  that  they  could  have  touched  the  Americans 
with  a  sabre. 

"  A  scratch,"  said  Hodge,  breathing  more  freely. 

"Hush,"  said  Cundiff,  crouching  still  closer  in  the  shadow  of  the 
maguey,  "  the  worst  is  yet  to  come." 

And  it  was.  From  where  the  Americans  had  hidden  to  the 
tienda  ia  which  the  Mexicans  were  carousing  it  was  probably  fifteen 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  323 

paces.  The  sudden  galloping  of  the  horsemen  through  the  village 
had  startle'd  th^  revelers.  If  they  were  friends,  they  called  oat 
to  each  other,  they  would  have  tarried  long  enough  for  a  stirrup 
cup  ;  if  they  are  enemies  we  shall  pursue. 

The  Mexicans  were  a  little  drunk,  yet  not  enough  so  to  make 
them  negligent.  After  mounting  their  horses,  they  spread  out  in 
skirmishing  order,  with  an  interval,  probably,  of  five  feet  between 
each  man.  Against  the  full  glare  that  streamed  out  from  the 
lighted  doorway  the  picturesque  forms  of  five  guerrillas  outlined 
themselves.  The  silver  ornaments  on  their  bridles  shone,  the 
music  of  the  spurs  penetrated  to  the  ambush,  and  the  wide 
sombreros  told  all  too  well  the  calling  of  those  mounted  robbers  who 
are  wolves  in  pursuit  and  tigers  in  victory.  None  have  ever  been 
known  to  spare. 

Hodge  would  talk,  brave  as  he  was,  and  imminent  as  was  his 
peril.  Even  in  this  extremity  his  soldierly  tactics  came  uppermost. 

"There  are  five,"  he  said,  "and  we  are  but  two.  We  have 
fought  worse  odds." 

" So  we  have,"  answered  Cundiff,  "and  may  do  it  again  before 
this  night's  work  is  over.  Lie  low  and  wait." 

The  guerrillas  came  right  onward.  At  a  loss  to  understand  fully 
the  nature  of  the  men  who  had  just  ridden  through  the  village, 
they  were  maneuvering  now  as  if  they  expected  to  meet  them  in 
hostile  array  at  any  moment.  There  were  fifty  chances  to  five  that 
some  one  of  the  skirmishers  would  discover  the  ambush. 

Although  terrible,  the  suspense  was  brief.  Between  the  maguey 
plant  and  the  road,  two  of  the  guerrillas  filled  up  the  interval. 
This  left  the  three  others  to  the  left  and  rear.  They  had  their  mus- 
quetoons  in  their  hands,  and  were  searching  keenly  every  clump  of 
grass  or  patch  of  underbrush.  Those  nearest  the  road  had  passed 
on,  and  those  upon  the  left  were  just  abreast  of  the  ambush.  The 
Americans  did  not  breathe.  Suddenly,  and  with  a  fierce  shout,  the 
third  skirmisher  in  the  line  yelled  out: 

"What  ho!  comrades,  close  up — close  up— here  are  two  skulk- 
ing Frenchmen.  Per  Dios,  but  we  will  have  their  hearts'  blood." 

As  he  shouted  he  leveled  his  musket  until  its  muzzle  almost 
touched  the  quiet  face  of  Cundiff,  the  rest  of  the  Mexicans  rushing 
up  furiously  to  the  spot. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

IP  it  be  true,  that  when  a  woman  hesitates  she  is  lost,  the  adage 
applies  with  a  ten-fold  greater  degree  of  precision  to  a  Mexican 
guerrilla,  who  has  come  suddenly  upon  an  American  in  ambush 
and  who,  mistaking  him  for  a  French  soldier,  hesitates  to  fire  until> 
he  has  called  around  him  his  comrades.  A  revolver  to  a  Frenchman 
is  an  unknown  weapon.  Skill  in  its  use  is  something  he  never 
acquires.  Rarely  a  favorite  in  his  hands  no  matter  how  great  the 
stress,  nor  how  frightful  the  danger,  it  is  the  muzzle-loader  that 
ever  comes  uppermost,  favored  above  all  other  weapons  that  might 
have  been  had  for  the  asking. 

Cundiff,  face  to  face  with  immiment  death,  meant  to  fight  to  the 
last.  His  orders  were  to  go  into  Matehuala,  and  not  to  give  up  as 
a  wolf  that  is  taken  in  a  trap.  His  revolver  was  in  his  hand,  and  the 
Mexican  took  one  second  too  many  to  run  his  eye  along  the  barrel  of 
his  musquetoon.  With  a  motion  as  instantaneous  as  it  was  unex- 
pected, Cundiff  fired  fair  at  the  Mexican's  breast,  the  bullet  speed- 
ing true  and  terrible  to*  its  mark.  He  fell  forward  over  his  horse's 
head  with  a  ghastly  cry,  his  four  companions  crowding  around  his 
prostrate  body,  frightened,  it  may  be,  but  bent  on  vengeance.  As 
they  grouped  themselves  together,  Hodge  and  Cundiff  shot 
into  the  crowd,  wounding  another  guerrilla  and  one  of  the 
horses,  and  then  broke  away  from  cover  and  rushed  on  toward 
Matehuala.  The  road  ran  directly  through  a  village  This 
village  was  long  and  scattering,  and  alive  with  soldiers.  A  great 
shout  was  raised;  ten  thousand  dogs  seemed  to  be  on  the  alert,  more 
furious  than  the  men,  and  keener  of  sight  and  scent.  The  fight 
became  a  hunt.  The  houses  sent  armed  men  in  pursuit.  The  five 
guerrillas,  reduced  now  to  three,  led  the  rush,  but  not  desperately. 
Made  acquainted  with  the  stern  prowess  of  the  Americans,  they  had 
no  heart  for  a  close  grapple  without  heavy  odds.  At  intervals 
Cundiff  and  Hodge  would  halt  and  fire  back  with  their  carbines, 
and  then  press  forward  again  through  the  darkness.  Two  men 
were  keeping  two  hundred  at  bay,  and  Cundiff  spoke  to  Hodge: 
"  This  pace  is  fearful.  How  long  can  you  keep  it  up?" 
"  Not  long.  There  seems,  however,  to  be  a  light  ahead." 
And  there  was.  A  large  fire,  distance  some  five  hundred  yards, 
came  suddenly  in  sight.  The  rapid  firing  coming  from  both  pur- 
suers and  pursued  had  created  commotion  in  front.  There  were 
the  rallying  notes  of  a  bugle,  and  the  sudden  forming  of  a  line  of 
men  immediately  in  front  of  the  camp-fire  seen  by  the  Americans. 
Was  it  a  French  outpost  ?  Neither  knew,  but  against  this  unforeseen 


AN  UNWRITTEN   LEAF  OP  THE  WAR.  325 

danger  now  outlined  fully  in  the  front  that  in  the  rear  was  too  near 
and  too  deadly  to  permit  of  preparation. 

"  We  are  surrounded,"  said  Hodge. 

"Rather  say  we  are  in  the  breakers,  and  that  in  trying  to  avoid 
Scylla  we  shall  be  wrecked  upon  Chary bdis,"  replied  Cundiff,  turn- 
ing cooly  to  his  comrade,  after  firing  deliberately  upon  the  nearest 
of  the  pursuers,  and  halting  long  enough  to  reload  his  carbine.  "  It 
all  depends  upon  a  single  chance." 

"  And  what  is  that  chance  ?" 

"  To  escape  the  first  close  fusillade  of  the  French." 

"  But  are  they  French — those  fellows  in  front  of  us  ?" 

"  Can't  you  swear  to  that  ?  Did  you  not  mark  how  accurately 
they  fell  into  line,  and  how  silent  everything  has  been  since  ?  Keep 
your  ears  wide  open,  and  when  you  hear  a  single  voice  call  out,  fall 
flat  upon  the  ground.  That  single  voice  will  be  the  leader's  ordering 
a  volley. " 

It  would  seem  that  the  Mexicans  also  had  begun  to  realize  the 
situation.  A.  last  desperate  rush  had  been  determined  upon,  and 
twenty  of  the  swiftest  and  boldest  pursuers  charged  furiously  down 
at  a  run,  firing  as  they  came  on.  There  was  no  shelter,  and  Cundiff 
and  Hodge  stood  openly  at  bay,  holding,  each,  his  fire,  until  the 
oncoming  mass  was  only  twenty  yards  away.  Then  the  revolver 
volleys  were  incessant.  At  a  distance  they  sounded  as  if  a  company 
were  engaged;  to  the  guerrillas  the  two  men  had  multiplied  them- 
selves to  a  dozen. 

The  desperate  stand  made  told  well.  The  fierce  charge  expended 
itself.  Those  farthest  in  the  front  slackened  their  pace,  halted,  fell 
back,  retreated  a  little,  yet  still  kept  up  an  incessant  volley. 

"Come,"  said  Cundiff,  "and  let's  try  the  unknown.  These 
fellows  in  the  rear  have  had  enough." 

Instead  of  advancing  together  now,  one  skirted  the  road  on  the 
left  and  the  other  on  the  right.  The  old  skirmishing  drill  was 
beginning  to  re-assert  itself  again — a  sure  sign  that  the  danger  in 
the  rear  had  transferred  itself  to  the  front.  Of  a  sudden  a  clear, 
resonant  voice  came  from  the  direction  of  the  fire.  Cundiff  and 
Hodge  fell  forward  instantly  upon  their  faces,  a  hurricane  of  balls 
swept  over  and  beyond  them,  and  for  reply  the  loud,  calm  shout  of 
Hodge  was  heard  in  parley: 

"Hold  on,  men,  hold  on.  We  are  but  two  and  we  are  friends. 
See,  we  come  into  your  lines  to  make  our  words  good.  We  are 
Americans  and  we  have  tidings  for  Captain  Pierron." 

Four  French  soldiers  came  out  to  meet  them.  Explanations 
were  mutually  had,  and  it  was  long  past  midnight  when  the  com- 
mander of  the  garrison  had  finished  his  conference  with  the  daring 
scouts,  and  had  been  well  assured  of  his  timely  and  needed  succor. 

Pierron  offered  them  food  and  lodging. 


326  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

"  We  must  return,"  said  Cundiff. 

The  Frenchman  opened  his  eyes  wide  with  surprise. 

"  Return,  the  devil !  You  have  not  said  your  prayers  yet  for 
being  permitted  to  get  in." 

' '  No  matter.  He  prays  best  who  fights  the  best,  and  Shelby 
gives  no  thanks  for  unfinished  work.  Am  I  right,  Hodge  ?  " 

"  Now  as  always ;  but  surely  Captain  Pierron  can  send  us  by  a 
nearer  road." 

The  Frenchman  thus  appealed  to,  gave  the  two  men  an  escort  of 
forty  cuirassiers  and  sent  them  back  to  Shelby's  camp  by  a  road  but 
slightly  guarded,  the  Mexican  picquets  upon  it  firing  but  once  at 
long  range  and  then  scampering  away. 

It  was  daylight,  and  the  great  guns  were  roaring  again.  The 
column  got  itself  in  motion  at  once  and  waited.  Shelby's  orders 
were  repeated  by  each  captain  to  his  company,  and  in  words  so 
plain  that  he  who  ran  might  have  understood.  The  attack  was  to 
be  made  in  columns  of  fours,  the  men  firing  right  and  left  from  the 
two  files  as  they  dashed  in  among  the  Mexicans.  It  was  the  old  way 
of  doing  deadly  work,  and  not  a  man  there  was  unfamiliar  with  the 
duty  marked  out  for  his  hands  to  do. 

Largely  outnumbered,  the  French  were  fighting  men  who  know 
that  defeat  means  destruction.  Many  of  them  had  been  killed. 
Pierron  was  anxious,  and  through  the  rising  mists  of  the  morning, 
his  eyes  more  than  once  and  with  aa  eagerness  not  usually  there, 
looked  away  to  the  front  where  he  knew  the  needed  succor  lay. 
It  came  as  it  always  came,  whether  to  friend  or  foe,  in  time.  Not 
a  throb  of  the  laggard's  pulse  had  Shelby  ever  felt,  and  upon  this 
day  of  all  days  of  his  stormy  career  he  meant  to  do  a  soldier's 
sacred  duty.  From  a  walk  the  column  passed  into  a  trot,  Shelby 
leadirfg.  There  was  no  advance  guard  ahead,  and  none  was  needed. 

"We  know  what  is  before  us,' '  was  his  answer  to  Langhorne. 
"and  it  is  my  pleasure  this  morning  to  receive  the  fire  first  of  you  all. 
Take  your  place  with  your  company,  the  fifth  from  the  front." 

' '  Gallop — march ! " 

The  men  gathered  up  the  reins  and  straightened  themselves  in  their 
stirrups.  Some  Mexicans  were  in  the  road  before  them  and  halted. 
The  apparition  to  them  came  from  the  unknown.  They  might  have 
been  specters,  but  they  were  armed,  and  armed  specters  are  terri- 
ble. The  alarm  of  the  night  before  had  been  attributed  to  the  dar- 
ing of  two  adventurous  Frenchmen.  Not  one  of  the  besieging 
host  had  dreamed  that  a  thousand  Americans  were  within  two  miles 
of  Matehuala,  resolved  to  fight  for  the  besieged,  and  take  the 
investing  lines  in  rear  and  at  the  gallop. 

On  one  side  of  the  road  down  which  Shelby  was  advancing  there 
ran  a  chain  of  broken  and  irregular  hills,  on  the  other,  the  long, 
straggling  village  in  which  Cundiff  and  Hodge  had  well  nigh  sac- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  327 

rificed  themselves.  These  the  daylight  revealed  perfectly.  Between 
the  hills  and  the  village  was  a  plain,  and  in  this  plain,  the  Mexican 
forces  were  drawn  up,  three  lines  deep,  having  as  a  point  d'appui  a 
heavy  six-gun  battery. 

Understanding  at  last  that  while  the  column  coming  down  from 
the  rear  was  not  Frenchmen,  it  was  not  friendly,  the  Mexicans  made 
some  dispositions  to  resist  it.  Too  late  1  Caught  between  two  inex- 
orable jaws,  they  were  crushed  before  they  were  aware  of  the  peril. 
Shelby's  charge  was  like  a  thunder-cloud.  Nothing  could  live  before 
the  storm  of  its  revolver  bullets.  Lurid,  canopied  in  smoke-wreaths, 
pitiless,  keeping  right  onward,  silent  in  all  save  the  roar  of  the 
revolvers,  there  was  first  a  line  that  fired  upon  it,  and  then  a  great 
upheaving  and  rending  asunder.  When  the  smoke  rolled  away  the 
battery  had  no  living  thing  to  lift  a  hand  in  its  defense,  and  the 
fugitives  were  in  hopeless  and  helpless  flight  toward  the  mountains 
on  the  right  and  toward  the  village  upon  the  left.  Pursuit  Shelby 
made  none,  but  God  pity  all  whom  the  French  cuirassiers  over- 
took, and  who,  cloven  from  sombrero  to  sword-belt,  fell  thick  in  all 
the  streets  of  the  village,  and  died  hard  among  the  dagger-trees  and 
the  precipices  of  the  stony  and  unsheltering  mountains. 

Pierron  came  forth  with  his  entire  garrison  to  thank  and  wel- 
come his  preservers.  The  freedom  of  the  city  was  extended  to 
Shelby,  the  stores  of  the  post  were  at  his  disposal,  money  was 
offered  and  refused,  and  for  three  long  and  delightful  days  the  men 
rested  and  feasted.  To  get  shoes  for  his  horses  Shelby  had  fought 
a  battle,  not  bloodless,  however,  to  him,  but  a  battle  treasured 
to-day  in  the  military  archives  of  France  —  a  battle  which  won  for 
him  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  French  army,  and  which,  in  the  end, 
turned  from  him  the  confidence  of  Maximilian  and  rendered 
abortive  all  his  efforts  to  recruit  for  the  Austrian  a  corps  that  would 
have  kept  him  upon  his  throne.  Verily,  man  proposes  and  God 
disposes. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

PIERRON  made  Matehuala  a  paradise.  There  were  days  of  feast- 
ing and  mirth  and  minstrelsy,  and  in  the  balm  of  fragrant  nights 
the  men  dallied  with  the  women.  So  when  the  southward  march 
was  resumed,  many  a  bronzed  face  was  set  in  a  look  of  sadness,  and 
many  a  regretful  heart  pined  long  and  tenderly  for  the  dusky  hair 
that  would  never  be  plaited  again,  for  the  tropical  lips  that  for 
them  would  never  sing  again  the  songs  of  the  roses  and  the  summer 
time. 

Adventures  grew  thick  along  the  road  as  cactus  plants.  Villages 
multiplied,  and  as  the  ride  went  on,  larger  towns  and  larger  popula- 
tions were  daily  entered  into.  The  French  held  all  the  country. 
Everywhere  could  be  seen  the  picturesque  uniforms  of  the  Zouaves, 
the  soberer  garments  of  the  Voltigeurs,  the  gorgeous  array  of  the 
Chasseurs,  and  the  more  somber  and  forbidding  aspect  of  the  Foot 
Artillery.  The  French  held  all  the  country,  that  is  to  say,  wher- 
ever a  French  garrison  had  stationed  itself,  or  wherever  a  French 
expeditionary  force,  or  scouting  force,  or  reconnoitering  force  had 
camped  or  was  on  the  march,  such  force  held  all  the  country  within 
the  range  of  their  cannon  and  their  chassepots.  Otherwise  not. 
Guerrillas  abounded  in  the  mountains;  robbers  fed  and  fattened  by 
all  the  streams;  spies  swarmed  upon  the  haciendas,  and  cruel  and 
ruthless  scourges  from  the  marshes  rode  in  under  the  full  of  the 
tropical  moons,  and  slew  for  a  whole  night  through,  and  on  many 
a  night  at  intervals  thereafter,  whoever  of  Mexican  or  Punic  faith 
had  carried  truth  or  tidings  of  Liberal  movements  to  the'French. 

It  was  in  Dolores,  the  home  of  Hidalgo — priest,  butcher,  revolu- 
tionist— that*those  wonderful  blankets  were  made  which  blend  the 
colors  of  the  rainbow  with  the  strength  of  the  north  wind.  Soft, 
warm,  gorgeous,  flexible,  two  strong  horses  can  not  pull  them 
asunder — two  weeks  of  au  east  rain  can  not  find  a  pore  to  penetrate. 
Marvels  of  an  art  that  has  never  yet  been  analyzed  or  transferred; 
Dolores,  a  century  old,  has  yet  an  older  secret  than  itself,  the  secret 
of  their  weaving. 

Shelby's  discipline  was  now  sensibly  increasing.  As  the  men 
marched  into  the  south,  and  as  the  soft  airs  blew  for  them,  and  the 
odorous  blossoms  opened  for  them,  and  the  dusky  beauties  were 
gay  and  gracious  for  them,  they  began  to  chafe  under  the  iron  rule 
of  the  camp,  and  the  inexorable  logic  of  guard  and  picquet  duty. 
Once  a  detachment  of  ten,  told  off  for  the  grand  guards,  refused 
to  stir  from  the  mess-fire  about  which  an  elegant  supper  was  being 
prepared. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAP  OF  THE  WAR.  329 

And  in  such  guise  did  the  word  come  to  Shelby. 

"  They  refuse?  "  he  asked. 

"Peremptorily,  General." 

' '  Ah !    And  for  what  reason  ? " 

"  They  say  it  is  unnecessary." 

"  And  so,  in  addition  to  rank  mutiny,  they  would  justify  them- 
selves? Call  out  the  guard  " 

The  guard  came,  Jo.  Macey  at  its  head  —  twenty  determined 
men,  fit  for  any  work  a  soldier  might  do.  Shelby  rose  up  and  went 
with  it  to  where  the  ten  mutineers  were  feasting  and  singing. 
They  knew  what  was  coming,  and  their  leader,  brave  even  to  des- 
peration, laid  his  hand  upon  his  revolver.  There  was  murder  in 
his  eyes,  that  wicked  and  wanton  murder  which  must  have  been 
in  Sampson's  heart  when  he  laid  hold  of  the  pillar  of  the  Temple 
and  felt  the  throes  of  the  crushing  edifice  as  it  swayed  and  toppled 
and  buried  all  in  a  common  ruin. 

Jo.  Macey  halted  his  detachment  within  five  feet  of  the  mess 
fire.  He  had  first  whispered  to  Shelby: 

"  When  you  want  me  speak.  I  shall  kill  nine  of  the  ten  the  first 
broadside." 

It  can  do  no  good  to  write  the  name  of  the  leader  of  the  muti 
neers.  He  sleeps  to-day  in  the  golden  sands  of  a  Sonora  stream; 
sleeps  forgiven  by  all  whose  lives  he  might  have  given  away — 
given  away  without  cause  or  grievance.  When  he  dared  to  disobey, 
either  this  man  or  the  Expedition  had  to  be  sacrificed.  Happily, 
both  were  saved. 

Shelby  walked  into  the  midst  of  the  mutineers,  looking  into  the 
eyes  of  all.  His  voice  was  deep  and  very  grave. 

"  Men,  go  back  to  your  duty.  I  am  among  you  all,  an  ad- 
venturer like  yourself,  but  I  have  been  charged  to  carry  you 
through  to  Mexico  City  in  safety,  and  this  I  will  do,  so  surely  as  the 
good  God  rules  the  universe.  I  don't  seek  to  know  the  cause  of  this 
thing.  I  ask  no  reason  for  it,  no  excuse  for  it,  no  regrets  nor  apolo- 
gies for  it.  I  only  want  your  soldierly  promise  to  obey." 

No  man  spoke.  The  leader  mistook  the  drift  of  things  and  tried 
to  advance  a  little.  Shelby  stopped  him  instantly. 

"Not  another  word,"  he  almost  shouted;  "  but  if  within  fifteen 
seconds  by  the  watch  you  are  not  in  line  for  duty,  you  shall  be  shot 
like  the  meanest  Mexican  dog  in  all  the  Empire.  Cover  these  men, 
Macey,  with  your  carbines." 

Twenty  gaping  muzzles  crept  straight  to  the  front,  waiting.  The 
seconds  seemed  as  hours.  In  that  supreme  moment  of  unpitying 
danger  the  young  mutineer,  if  left  to  himself,  would  have  dared  the 
worst,  dying  as  he  had  lived;  but  the  others  could  not  look  full  into 
the  face  of  the  grim  skeleton  and  take  the  venture  for  a  cause  so 
disgraceful.  They  yielded  to  the  inevitable,  and  went  forth  to 


330  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

their  duty  bearing  their  leader  with  them.  Thereafter  no  more 
faithful  and  honorable  soldiers  could  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  all 
the  Expedition. 

The  column  had  gone  southward  from  Dolores  a  long  day's 
journey.  The  whole  earth  smelt  sweet  with  spring.  In  the  air  was 
the  noise  of  many  wings,  on  the  trees  the  purple  and  pink  of  many 
blossoms.  Summer  lay  with  bare  breast  upon  all  the  fields — a 
queen  whose  rule  had  never  known  an  hour  of  storm  or  overthrow. 
It  was  a  glorious  land  filled  full  of  the  sun  and  of  the  things  that 
love  the  sun. 

Late  one  afternoon,  tired,  hot  and  dusty,  Dick  Collins  and  Ik 
Berry  halted  by  the  wayside  for  a  little  rest  and  a  little  gossip. 
In  violation  of  orders  this  thing  had  been  done,  and  Mars  is  a  jealous 
and  a  vengeful  god.  They  tarried  long,  smoking  a  bit  and  talking 
a  bit,  and  finally  fell  asleep. 

A  sudden  scout  of  guerrillas  awoke  the  gentlemen,  using  upon 
Collins  the  back  of  a  saber,  and  upon  Berry,  who  was  larger  and 
sounder  of  slumber,  the  butt  of  a  musquetoon.  There  were  six  of 
them — swart,  soldierly  fellows,  who  wore  gilded  spurs  and  bedecked 
sombreros. 

"  Francaisces,  eh!  "  they  muttered  one  to  another. 

Berry  knew  considerable  Spanish — Collins  not  so  much.  To  lie 
under  the  imputation  of  being  French  was  to  lie  within  the  shadow 
of  sudden  death.  Berry  tried  to  keep  away  from  that.  He 
answered: 

"  No,  no,  Senors,  not  Francaisces  but  Americanos." 

The  Mexicans  looked  at  each  other  and  shrugged  their  shoulders. 

Berry  had  revealed  to  them  that  he  spoke  Spanish  enough  to  be 
dangerous. 

Their  pistols  were  taken  from  them;  their  carbines,  their  horses, 
and  whatever  else  could  be  found,  including  a  few  pieces  of  silver 
in  Berry's  pocket.  Then  they  felt  of  Collins*  pantaloons.  It  had 
been  so  long  since  they  echoed  to  the  jingle  of  either  silver  or 
gold,  that  even  the  pockets  issued  a  protest  at  the  imputation. 
Afterward  the  two  men  were  marched  across  the  country  to  a 
group  of  adobe  buildings  among  a  range  of  hills,  far  enough 
removed  from  the  route  of  travel  to  be  safe  from  rescue.  They 
were  cast  into  a  filthy  room  where  there  was  neither  bed  nor 
blanket,  and  bade  to  rest  there.  Two  of  the  guard,  with  musque- 
toons  in  hand  and  revolvers  at  waist,  occupied  the  same  room.  With 
them,  the  dirt  and  the  fleas  were  congenial  companions. 

Collins  fell  a  musing. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about,  Dick?  "  Berry  asked. 

" Escape.    And  you?  " 

"  Of  something  to  eat." 

Here  was  a  Hercules  who  was  always  hungry. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  331 

A  Mexican,  in  his  normal  condition  must  have  drink.  A  stone 
ewer  of  fiery  Catalan  was  brought  in,  and  as  the  night  deepened,  so 
did  their  potations.  Before  midnight  the  two  guards  were  drunk. 
An  hour  later,  and  one  of  them  was  utterly  oblivious  to  all  earthly 
objects.  The  other  amused  himself  by  pointing  his  cocked  gun  at 
the  Americans,  laughing  low  and  savagely  when  they  would 
endeavor  to  screen  themselves  from  his  comic  mirth. 

His  drunken  comrade  was  lying  on  his  back,  with  a  scarf 
around  his  waist,  in  which  a  knife  was  sticking. 

Collins  looked  at  it  until  his  eyes  glittered.  He  found  time  to 
whisper  to  Berry: 

"  You  are  as  strong  as  an  ox.  Stand  by  me  when  I  seize  that 
knife  and  plunge  it  in  the  other  Mexican's  breast.  I  may  not  kill 
him  the  first  time,  and  if  I  do  not,  then  grapple  with  him.  The 
second  stab  shall  be  more  fatal." 

"  Unto  death,"  replied  Berry.    "  Make  haste." 

For  one  instant  the  guard  took  his  eyes  from  the  movements  of 
the  Americans.  Collins  seized  the  knife  and  rose  up — stealthy, 
menacing,  terrible.  They  advanced  upon  the  Mexican.  He  turned 
as  they  came  across  the  room  and  threw  out  his  gun.  Too  late. 
Aiming  at  the  left  side,  Collins'  blow  swerved  aside,  the  knife  enter- 
ing just  below  the  breast  bone  and  cutting  a  dreadful  gash.  With 
the  spring  of  a  tiger-cat  Berry  leaped  upon  him  and  hurled  him  to 
the  floor.  Again  the  knife  arose — there  was  a  dull,  penetrating 
thud,  a  quiver  of  relaxing  limbs,  a  groan  that  sounded  like  a  curse, 
and  beside  the  drunken  man  there  lay  another  who  would  never 
touch  Catalan  again  this  side  eternity. 

Instant  flight  was  entered  into.  Stripping  the  arms  from  the 
living  and  the  dead,  the  Americans  hurried  out.  They  found  their 
horses  unguarded ;  the  wretched  village  was  in  unbroken  sleep,  and 
not  anywhere  did  wakeful  or  vigilant  sentinel  rise  up  to  question  or 
restrain.  By  the  noon  of  the  next  day  they  had  reported  to  Shelby, 
and  for  many  days  thereafter  a  shadow  was  seen  on  Collins'  face 
that  told  of  the  desperate  blow  struck  in  the  name  of  self-defense 
and  liberty.  After  that  the  two  men  never  straggled  again. 

Crosses  are  common  in  Mexico.  Lifting  up  their  penitential 
arms,  however,  by  the  wayside,  and  in  forlorn  and  gloomy  places, 
if  they  do  not  affright  one,  they  at  least  put  one  to  thinking.  There 
where  they  stand,  ghastly  and  weather-beaten  under  the  sky,  and 
alone  with  the  stars  and  the  night,  murder  has  been  done.  There 
at  the  feet  of  them — in  the  yellow  dust  of  the  roadway — innocent,  it 
may  be,  and  true,  and  too  young  to  die — a  dead  man  has  lain  with 
his  face  in  a  pool  of  blood.  Sometimes  flowers  adorn  the  crosses, 
and  votive  offerings,  and  many  a  rare  and  quaint  conceit  to  lighten 
the  frown  on  the  face  of  death,  and  fashion  a  few  links  in  the  chain 
of  memory  that  shall  make  even  the  dead  claim  kinship  with  all  the 
glad  and  sweet-growing  things  of  the  wonderful  summer  weather. 


332  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Over  beyond  Dolores  Hidalgo,  a  pleasant  two-days'  journey, 
there  was  a  high  hill  that  held  a  castle.  On  either  side  of  this  there 
were  heavy  masses  of  timber.  Below  the  fall  of  the  woodlands  a 
meadow  stretched  itself  out,  bounded  on  the  hither  side  by  a  stream 
that  was  limpid  and  musical.  Beyond  this  stream  a  broken  way 
began,  narrowing  down  at  last  to  a  rugged  defile,  and  opening  once 
more  into  a  country  fruitful  as  Paradise  and  filled  as  full  of  the 
sun. 

Just  where  the  defile  broke  away  from  the  shade  of  the  great 
oaks  a  cross  stood,  whose  history  had  a  haunting  memory  that  was 
sorrowful  even  in  that  sinful  and  sorrowful  land.  There  was  a 
young  girl  who  lived  in  this  castle,  very  fair  for  a  Mexican,  and  very 
steadfast  and  true.  The  interval  is  short  between  seedtime  and 
harvest,  and  she  ripened  early.  In  the  full  glory  of  her  beauty  and 
her  womanhood  she  was  plighted  to  a  young  commandante  from 
Dolores,  heir  of  many  fertile  acres,  a  soldier  and  an  Imperialist. 
Maybe  the  wooing  was  sweet,  for  what  came  after  had  in  it  enough 
of  bitterness  and  tears.  The  girl  had  a  brother  who  was  a  guerrilla 
chief,  devoted,  first  to  his  profession  and  next  to  the  fortunes  of 
Juarez.  Spies  were  everywhere,  and  even  from  his  own  household 
news  was  carried  of  the  courtship  and  the  approaching  marriage. 

For  days  and  days  he  watched  by  the  roadside,  scanning  all 
faces  that  hurried  by,  seeking  alone  for  the  face  that  might 
have  been  told  for  its  happiness.  One  night  there  was  a  trampling 
of  horsemen,  and  a  low  voice  singing  tenderly  under  the  moon. 
The  visit  had  been  long,  and  the  parting1  passionate  and  pure.  Only 
a  little  ways  with  love  at  his  heart  and  the  future  so  near  with  its 
outstretched  hands  as  to  reach  up  almost  to  the  marriage-ring.  No 
murmur  ran  along  the  lips  of  the  low-lying  grasses,  and  no  sentinel 
angel  rose  up  betwixt  fate  and  its  victim.  His  uniform  carried 
death  in  its  yellow  and  gold.  Not  to  his  own  alone  had  the  fair- 
haired  Austrian  brought  broken  hearts  and  stained  and  sundered 
marriage  vows.  Only  the  clear,  long  ring  of  a  sudden  musket,  and 
thedead  Imperialist  lay  with  his  face  in  the  dust  and  his  spirit  going 
the  dark  way  all  alone.  From  such  an  interview  why  ride  to  such 
an  ending?  No  tenderness  availed  him,  no  caress  consoled  him,  no 
fond  farewell  gave  him  staff  and  script  for  the  journey.  He  died 
where  the  woods  and  the  meadows  met — for  a  love  by  manhood  and 
faith  anointed. 

In  the  morning  there  had  been  lifted  up  a  cross.  It  was  standing 
there  still  in  the  glorious  weather.  The  same  flowers  were  bloom- 
ing still,  the  same  stream  swept  on  by  the  castle  gates,  the  same 
splendid  sweep  of  woodland  and  meadow  spread  itself  out  as 
God's  land  loved  of  the  sky — but  the  gallant  Commandante,  where 
was  he?  Ask  of  the  masses  that  the  pitying  angels  heard  and  car- 
ried on  their  wings  to  heaven. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  333 

One  tall  spire,  like  the  mighty  standard  of  a  king,  arose  through 
the  lances  of  the  sunset.  San  Miguel  was  in  sight,  a  city  built  upon 
a  hill.  Around  its  forbidding  base  the  tide  of  battle  had  ebbed  and 
flowed,  and  there  had  grim  old  Carterac  called  out,  the  cloud  of  the 
cannon's  smoke  and  the  cloud  of  his  beard  white  together. 

"My  children,  the  Third  know  how  to  die.  One  more  victory 
and  one  more  cross  for  all  of  you.  Forward!" 

This  to  the  Third  Zouaves  as  they  were  fixing  bayonets  on  the 
crest  of  a  charge  with  which  all  the  empire  rang.  Afterward, 
when  Carterac  was  buried,  shot  foremost  in  the  breach,  the  natives 
came  to  view  the  grave  and  turned  away  wondering  what  manner 
of  a  giant  had  been  interred  therein.  He  had  gone  but  a  little  way 
in  advance  of  his  children.  What  San  Miguel  had  spared  Grave- 
lotte  finished.  Verily  war  has  its  patriarchs  no  less  renowned  than 
Israel's. 

From  out  the  gates  of  the  town,  and  down  the  long  paven  way 
leading  northward,  a  gallant  regiment  came  gaily  forth  to  welcome 
Shelby.  The  music  of  the  sabers  ran  through  the  valley.  Pennons 
floated  wide  and  free,  the  burnished  guns  rose  and  fell  in  the  dim, 
undulating  swing  of  perfect  horsemen,  and  the  rays  of  the  setting 
sun  shone  upon  the  gold  of  the  epaulettes  until,  as  with  fire,  they 
blazed  in  the  delicious  haze  of  the  evening. 

Some  paces  forward  of  all  the  goodly  company  rode  one  who 
looked  a  soldier.  Mark  him  well.  That  regiment  there  is  known 
as  the  Empress'  Own.  The  arms  of  Carlota  are  on  the  blue  of  the 
uniforms.  That  silken  flag,  though  all  unbaptized  by  blood  or  battle, 
was  wrought  by  her  gentle  hands — hands  that  wove  into  the  tapestry 
of  time  a  warp  and  woof  sadder  than  aught  of  any  tragedy  ever 
known  before  the  king-craft  or  conquest.  She  was  standing  by  a 
little  altar  in  the  palace  of  Chepultepec  on  an  afternoon  in  May. 
The  city  of  Montezuma  was  at  her  feet  in  the  delicious  sleep  of  its 
siesta. 

"  Swear,"  she  said,  putting  forth  the  unfolded  standard  until  the 
sweep  of  its  heavy  fringes  canopied  the  long,  lustrous  hair  of  the 
Colonel,  "  swear  to  be  true  to  king  and  country." 

The  man  knelt  down. 

"  To  king  and  queen  and  country,"  he  cried,  "  while  a  sword  can 
be  drawn  or  a  squadron  mustered." 

She  smiled  upon  him  and  gave  him  her  hand  as  he  arose.  This 
he  stooped  low  to  kiss,  repeating  again  his  oath,  and  pledging  again 
all  a  soldier's  faith  to  the  precious  burden  laid  upon  his  honor. 

Look  at  him  once  more  as  he  rides  up  from  the  town  through 
.the  sunset.  At  his  back  is  the  regiment  of  Carlota,  and  over  this 
regiment  the  stainless  banner  of  Carlota  is  floating.  The  face  is  very 
fair  for  a  Mexican's,  and  a  little  Norman  in  its  handsome  outlines. 
Some  curls  were  in  thelustrous  hair,  not  masculine  curls,  but  royal 


334  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  JIUXICO; 

enough,  perhaps,  to  recall  the  valorous  deeds  that  were  done  at  Flod- 
den,  when  from  over  seas  the  beautiful  Queen  of  France,  beloved  of 
all  gallant  gentlemen,  sent  to  the  Scottish  monarch 

"  A  turquoise  ring  and  glove, 
And  charged  him  as  her  knight  and  love, 
To  march  three  miles  on  English  land, 
And  strike  three  strokes  with  Scottish  brand, 
And  bid  the  banners  of  his  band 
In  English  breeees  dance." 

He  gave  Shelby  cordial  greeting,  and  made  him  welcome  to  San 
Miguel  in  the  name  of  the  Empire.  His  eyes,  large  and  penetrating, 
wore  yet  a  sinister  look  that  marred  somewhat  the  smile  that 
should  have  come  not  so  often  to  the  face  of  a  Spaniard.  He  spoke 
English  well,  talked  much  of  New  York  which  he  had  visited, 
predicted  peace  and  prosperity  to  Maximilian  and  his  reign  after  a 
few  evil  days,  and  bowed  low  in  salute  when  he  separated. 

That  man  was  Col  Leonardo  Lopez,  the  traitor  of  Queretero,  the 
spy  of  Escobedo,  the  wretch  who  sold  his  flag,  the  coward  who 
betrayed  his  regiment,  the  false  knight  who  denied  his  mistress,  and 
the  decorated  and  ennobled  thing  who  gave  up  his  emperor  to  a 
dog's  death.  And  the  price — thirty  thousand  dollars  in  gold.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  his  wife  forsook  him,  that  his  children  turned  their 
faces  away  from  him,  that  the  church  refused  him  asylum,  that  a 
righteous  soldier  of  the  Liberal  cause  smote  him  upon  either  cheek 
in  presence  of  an  army  on  parade,  and  that  even  the  very  lazzaroni 
of  the  streets  pointed  at  him  as  he  passed,  and  shouted  in  voluble 
derision  : 

"  The  Traitor  !  the  Traitor  ! " 

And  yet  did  all  these  things  happen  to  the  handsome  horseman 
who  rode  up  quietly  to  the  Expedition  in  front  of  San  Miguel,  and 
bade  it  welcome  in  the  name  of  hospitality  and  the  Empire. 

Gen.  Felix  Douay  held  San  Luis  Potosi,  the  great  granary  of 
Mexico.  It  was  the  brother  of  this  Douay  who,  surrounded  and 
abandoned  at  Weissembourg,  marched  alone  and  on  foot  toward 
the  enemy,  until  a  Prussian  bullet  found  his  heart.  Older  and 
calmer  and  wiser,  perhaps,  than  his  brother,  Gen.  Felix  Douay 
was  the  strong  right  arm  of  Bazaine  and  Maximilian.  Past  sixty, 
gray-bearded  and  gaunt,  he  knew  war  as  the  Indian  knows  a  trail. 
After  assigning  quarters  to  the  men,  he  sent  at  once  for  Shelby. 

"You  have  come  among  us  for  an  object,"  he  commenced  in  per- 
fect English,  "and  as  I  am  a  man  of  few  words,  please  state  to  me 
frankly  what  that  object  is. " 

"To  take  service  under  Maximilian,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 

"What  are  your  facilities  for  recruiting  a  corps  of  Americans?" 

"So  ample,  General,  that  if  authority  is  given  me,  I  can  pledge 
to  you  the  services  of  fifty  thousand  in  six  months." 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  335 

Some  other  discourse  was  bad  between  tbem,  and  Douay  fell  to 
musing  a  little.  When  he  was  done  he  called  an  aide  to  his  side,  wrote 
a  lenghty  communication,  bade  the  staff  officer  take  it  and  ride  rap- 
idly to  the  City  of  Mexico,  returning  with  the  same  speed  when  he 
had  received  his  answer. 

As  he  extended  his  hand  to  Shelby  in  parting,  he  said  to  him: 

"You  will  remain  here  until  further  orders.  It  may  be  that  there 
shall  be  work  for  your  hands  sooner  than  either  of  us  expect." 

Southward  from  San  Luis  Potosi,  and  running  far  down  to  the 
Gulf,  even  unto  Tampico,  was  a  low,  level  sweep  of  land,  where 
marshes  abounded  and  retreats  that  were  almost  unknown  and  well 
nigh  inaccessible.  In  the  ffever  months,  the  fatal  months  of  August 
and  September  these  dismal  fens  and  swamps  were  alive  with  guer- 
rillas. Vomito  lurked  in  the  long  lagoons,  and  lassitude,  emaciation 
and  death  peered  out  from  behind  every  palm  tree  and  cypress  root. 
Foreigners  there  were  none  who  could  abide  that  dull  greyish 
exhalation  which  wrought  for  the  morning  a  winding  sheet,  andforthe 
French  it  was  not  only  the  valley,  but  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death.  Bazaine's  light  troops,  his  Voltigeurs  and  his  Chasseurs  of 
Vincennes,  had  penetrated  there  and  died.  Most  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  had  gone  in  there  and  perished.  Two  battalions  of  Zouaves 
— great,  bearded,  medaled  fellows,  bronzed  by  Syrian  night  winds, 
and  tempered  to  steel  in  the  sap  and  siege  of  Sebastopol — had  borne 
their  eagles  backward  from  the  mist,  famishing  because  of  a  fever 
came  with  the  morning  and  the  fog. 

No  matter  how,  the  guerrillas  fattened.  Reptiles  need  little 
beside  the  ooze  and  the  fretid  vegetation  of  the  lowlande,  and  so 
when  the  rains  came  and  the  roads  grew  wearisome  and  long,  they 
rose  upon  the  convoys  night  after  night,  massacting  all  that  fell 
into  their  hands,  even  the  women  and  the  live  stock. 

Figueroa  was  the  fell  spirit  of  the  marshes — a  Mexican  past 
forty-five,  one-eyed  from  the  bullet  of  an  American's  revolver,  tall 
for  his  race,  and  so  bitter  and  unrelenting  in  his  hatred  of  all  foreign- 
ers, especially  Americans,  that  when  he  dies  he  will  be  canonized.  If 
in  all  his  life  he  ever  knew  an  hour  of  mercy  or  relenting,  no  record 
in  story  or  tradition  stands  as  its  monument.  Backward  across  the 
Rio  Grande  there  have  been  borne  many  tales  of  Escobedo  andCara- 
bajal,  Martinez  and  Cortina,  Lozado  the  Indian  and  Rodriguez  the 
renegade  priest ;  but  for  deeds  of  desperate  butchery  and  vengeance, 
the  fame  of  all  these  is  as  the  leaves  that  fell  last  autumn. 

No  matter  his  crimes,  however,  he  fought  as  few  of  them  do  for 
his  native  land,  and  dreaded  but  two  things  on  earth — Dupin  and 
his  Contre-Guerrillas.  Twice  they  had  brought  him  to  bay,  and 
twice  he  had  retired  deeper  and  deeper  into  his  jungles,  sacrificing 
all  the  flower  of  his  following,  and  pressed  so  furiously  and  fast 
that  at  no  time  thereafter  could  he  turn  as  a  hunted  tiger  and 
rend  the  foremost  of  his  pursuers. 


336  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Figueroa  lay  close  to  the  high  national  road  running  from  San 
Luis  Potosi  to  Tampico,  levying  such  tribute  as  he  could  collect  hy 
night  and  in  a  manner  that  left  none  on  the  morrow  to  demand 
recompense  or  reckoning.  Because  it  was  a  post  in  possession  of 
the  French  it  was  necessary  for  Douay  to  have  safe  and  constant 
intercourse  with  Tampico.  This  was  impossible  so  long  as  Figue- 
roa lived  in  the  marshes  and  got  fat  on  the  fog  that  brought  only 
fever  and  death  to  the  Frenchman  and  the  foreigner  Three  expe- 
ditions had  been  sent  down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death 
and  had  returned;  those  that  were  left  of  them  soldiers  no  longer, 
but  skeletons  whose  uniforms  served  only  to  make  the  contrast 
ghastly.  The  road  was  still  covered  with  ambushments,  and  creep- 
ing and  crawling  forms  that  murdered  when  they  should  have 
slept. 

With  the  arrival  of  Shelby  a  sudden  resolution  had  come  to 
Douay.  He  meant  to  give  him  service  in  the  French  army,  send 
him  down  first  to  fight  the  fog  and  Figueroa,  and  afterward — well, 
the .  future  gives  generally  but  small  concern  to  a  Frenchman — 
but  afterward  there  could  have  been  no  doubt  of  Douay's  good 
Intentions,  and  of  a  desire  to  reward  all  liberally  who  did  his  bidding 
and  who  came  out  of  the  swamps  alive.  For  permission  to  do  this 
he  had  sent  forward  to  consult  Bazaine,  and  had  halted  Shelby  long 
enough  to  know  the  Marshal's  wishes. 

The  aid-de-camp  returned  speedily,  but  he  brought  with  him  only 
a  short,  curt  order  : 

"  Bid  the  Americans  march  immediately  to  Mexico." 

There  was  no  appeal.  Douay  marshaled  the  expedition,  served 
it  with  rations  and  wine,  spoke  some  friendly  and  soldierly  words 
to  all  of  its  officers,  and  bade  them  a  pleasant  and  a  prosperous 
journey.  Because  he  possessed  no  baton  is  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  interpreted  aright  the  future,  and  seen  that  the  auspicious 
hours  were  fast  hastening  away  when  it  would  be  no  longer  possible 
to  recruit  an  army  and  attach  to  the  service  of  Maximilian  a  power- 
ful corps  of  Americans.  Bazaine  had  mistrusted  their  motives  from 
the  first,  and  had  been  more  than  misinformed  of  their  movements 
and  their  numbers  since  the  expedition  had  entered  the  Empire.  As 
for  the  Emperor  his  mind  had  been  poisoned  by  his  Mexican  coun- 
selors, and  he  was  too  busy  then  with  his  botany  and  his  butterflies 
to  heed  the  sullen  murmurings  of  the  gathering  storm  in  the  north, 
and  to  understand  all  the  harsh,  indomitable  depths  of  that  stoical 
Indian  character  which  was  so  soon  to  rush  down  from  Chihuahua 
and  gratify  its  ferocious  appetite  in  the  blood  of  the  uptorn  and 
uprooted  dynasty.  They  laughed  at  Juarez  then,  the  low,  squat 
Indian,  his  sinister  face  scarred  with  the  small  pox  like  Mirabeau's, 
and  his  sleuth-hound  ways  that  followed  the  trail  of  the  Republic, 
though  in  the  scent  there  was  pestilence  and  famine  and  death. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  337 

One  day  the  French  lines  began  to  contract  as  a  wave  that  is  baffled 
and  broken.  The  cliff  followed  up  the  wave,  and  mariners  like 
Douay  and  Jeanningros,  looking  cut  from  the  quarter-deck, 
saw  not  only  the  granite,  but  the  substance,  the  granite 
typified;  they  saw  Juarez  and  his  forty  thousand  ragged 
followers,  hungry,  brutal,  speaking  all  dialects,  grasping  bright 
American  muskets,  having  here  and  there  an  American  officer  in 
uniform,  unappeasable,  [oncoming — murderous.  Again  the  waves 
receded  and  again  there  was  Jaurez.  From  El  Paso  to  Chihua- 
hua, from  Chihuahua  to  Matamoras,  from  Matamoras  to  Monterey, 
to  Matehuala,  to  Dolores  Hidalgo,  to  San  Miguel,  to  the  very  spot 
on  which  Douay  stood  at  parting,  his  bronzed  face  saddened  and 
his  white  hair  waving  in  the  winds  of  the  summer  morning. 

It  was  no  war  of  his,  however.  "What  he  was  sent  to  do  he  did. 
Others  planned,  Douay  executed.  It  might  have  been  better  if 
the  fair-haired  sovereign  had  thought  more  and  asked  more  of  the 
gray  haired  subject. 

It  was  on  the  third  day's  march  from  San  Luis  Potosi  that  an 
ambulance  broke  down,  having  in  its  keeping  two  wounded  soldiers 
of  the  Expedition.  The  accident  was  near  the  summit  of  the  Madre 
mountains — an  extended  rang«  between  San  Luis  Potosi  and  Pena- 
mason— and  within  a  mile  of  the  village  of  Sumapetla.  The  rear 
guard  came  within  without  it.  In  reporting,  before  being  dismissed 
for  the  night,  Shelby  asked  the  officer  of  the  ambulance. 

"  It  is  in  Sumapetla,"  the  Captain  answered. 

"And  the  wounded?" 

"  At  a  house  with  one  attendant." 

His  face  darkened.  The  whole  Madre  range  was  filled  with  rob- 
bers, and  two  of  his  best  men,  wounded  and  abandoned,  were  at  the 
mercy  of  the  murderers. 

"  If  a  hair  of  either  head  is  touched,"  he  cried  out  to  the  officer, 
*'it  will  be  better  that  you  had  never  crossed  the  Rio  Grande. 
What  avails  all  the  lessons  you  have  learned  of  this  treacherous  and 
deceitful  land  that  you  should  desert  comrades  in  distress  and  ride 
up  to  tell  me  the  pleasant  story  of  your  own  arrival  and  safety? 
Order  Kirtley  to  report  instantly  with  twenty  men." 

Capt.  James  B.  Kirtley  came — a  young,  smooth-faced,  daunt- 
less officer,  tried  in  the  front  of  fifty  battles,  a  veteran  and  yet  a 
boy.  The  men  had  ridden  thirty  miles  that  day,  but  what  mattered 
it?  Had  the  miles  been  sixty,  the  same  unquestioned  obedience 
would  have  been  yielded,  the  same  soldierly  spirit  manifested  of 
daring  and  adventure. 

"Return  to  Sumapetla,"  Shelby  said,  "and  find  my  wounded. 
Stay  with  them,  wait  for  them,  fight  for  them,  get  killed,  if  need 
be,  for  them,  but  whatever  you  do,  bring  or  send  them  back  to  me. 
I  shall  wait  for  you  a  day  and  a  night." 


338  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO' 

A  pale-faced  man,  with  his  eyes  drooping  and  his  form  bent, 
rode  up  to  Shelby.  He  plucked  him  by  the  sleeve  and  pleaded. 

"  General,  let  me  go  too.  I  did  not  think  when  I  left  them.  I 
can  fight.  Try  me,  General.  Tell  Kirtley  to  take  me.  It  is  a  lit- 
tle thing  I  am  asking  of  you,  but  I  have  followed  you  for  four 
years,  and  I  think,  small  as  it  is,  it  will  save  me." 

All  Shelby's  face  lit  up  with  a  pity  and  tenderness  that  was  abso- 
lutely winning.  He  grasped  his  poor,  tried  soldier's  hand,  and 
spoke  to  him  low  and  softly: 

"Go,  and  come  back  again.  I  was  harsh,  I  know,  and  over  cruel, 
but  between  us  two  there  is  neither  cloud  nor  shadow  of  feeling.  I 
do  forgive  you  from  my  soul." 

There  were  tears  in  the  man's  eyes  as  he  road  away,  and  a  heart 
beneath  his  uniform  that  was  worth  a  diadem. 

It  was  ten  long  miles  to  Sumapetla,  and  the  night  had  fallen. 
The  long,  swinging  trot  that  Kirtley  struck  would  carry  him  there 
in  two  hours  at  farthest,  and  if  needs  be,  the  trot  would  grow 
into  a  gallop. 

He  rode  along  his  ranks  and  spoke  to  his  men: 

"  Keep  quiet,  be  ready,  be  loaded.  You  heard  the  orders.  I 
shall  obey  them  or  be  even  beyond  the  need  of  the  ambulance  we 
have  been  sent  back  to  succor." 

Sumapetla  was  reached  in  safety.  It  was  a  miserable  squalid 
village,  filled  full  of  Indians  and  beggars  and  dogs.  In  the  largest 
house  the  wounded  men  were  found — not  well  cared  for,  but  com- 
fortable from  pain.  Their  attendant,  a  blacksmith,  was  busy  with 
the  broken  ambulance. 

Kirtley  threw  forward  picquets  and  set  about  seeking  for  supper. 
While  active  in  its  preparation  a  sudden  volley  came  from  the  front 
— keen,  dogged,  vicious.  From  the  roar  of  the  guns  Kirtly  knew 
that  his  men  had  fired  at  close  range  and  all  together.  It  was  a  clear 
night,  yet  still  quite  dark  in  the  mountains.  Directly  a  picquet  rode 
rapidly  up,  not  the  least  excited  yet  very  positive. 

"  There  is  a  large  body  in  front  of  us  and  well  armed.  They 
tried  a  surprise  and  lost  five.  We  did  not  think  it  well  to  charge, 
and  I  have  come  back  for  orders.  Please  say  what  they  are  quick, 
for  the  boys  may  need  me  before  I  can  reach  them  again." 

This  was  the  volunteer  who  had  commanded  the  rear  guard  of 
the  day's  march. 

Skirmishing  shots  now  broke  out  ominously.  There  were  fifteen 
men  in  the  village  and  five  on  outpost. 

"Mount,  all,"  cried  Kirtley,  "and  follow  me." 

The  relief  took  the  road  at  a  gallop. 

The  space  between  the  robbers  and  their  prey  was  scarcely  large 
enough  for  Kirtley  to  array  his  men  upon.  From  all  sides  there 
came  the  steady  roar  of  musketry,  telling  how  complete  the  ambus- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  339 

<iade,  and  how  serviceable  the  guns.  Some  fifty  paces  in  the  rear  of 
the  outpost  the  road  made  a  sudden  turn,  leaving  at  the  apex  of 
the  acute  angle  a  broken  zig-zag  piece  of  rock-work  capable  of 
much  sturdy  defense,  and  not  flanked  without  a  rush  and  a  moment 
or  two  of  desperate  in-fighting  that  is  rarely  the  choice  of  the  guer- 
rillas. This  Kirtley  had  noticed  with  the  eye  of  a  soldier  and  the 
quickness  of  a  man  who  meant  to  do  a  soldier's  duty  first  and  a  com- 
rade's duty  afterward.  Because  the  wounded  men  had  to  be  saved 
was  no  reason  why  those  who  were  unwounded  should  be  sacrificed. 

He  fell  back  to  the  rocky  ledge  facing  the  robbers.  Word  sent 
to  the  blacksmith  in  the  village  to  hurry,  to  make  rapid  and  zealous 
haste,  for  the  danger  was  pressing  and  dire,  got  for  an  answer  in 
return : 

"Captain  Kirtley,  I  am  doing  my  best.  A  Mexican's  black- 
smith shop  is  an  anvil  without  a  hammer,  a  forge  without  a  bel- 
lows, a  wheel  without  its  felloes  ;  and  I  have  to  make,  instead  of 
one  thing,  a  dozen  things.  It  will  be  two  hours  before  the  ambu- 
lance is  mended." 

Very  laconic  and  very  true.  Kirtley  never  thought  a  second 
time,  during  all  the  long  two  hours,  of  the  smithy  in  the  village, 
and  the  swart,  patient  smith  who,  within  full  sound  of  the  strug- 
gling musketry,  wrought  and  delved  and  listened  now  and  then  in 
the  intervals  of  his  toil  to  the  rising  and  falling  of  the  fight,  laugh- 
ing, perhaps,  low  to  himself,  as  his  practiced  ear  caught  the  various 
volleys,  and  knew  that  neither  backward  nor  forward  did  the 
Americns  recede  nor  advance  a  stone's  throw. 

The  low  reach  of  rock,  holding  fast  to  the  roots  of  the  trees  that 
grew  up  from  it,  and  bristling  with  rugged  and  stunted  shrubs, 
transformed  itself  into  a  citadel.  The  road  ran  by  it  like  an  arm 
that  encircles  a  waist.  Where  the  elbow  was  the  Americans  stood 
at  bay.  They  had  dismounted  and  led  their  horses  still  further  to 
the  rear — far  enough  to  be  safe,  yet  near  at  hand.  From  the 
unknown  it  was  impossible  to  tell  what  spectres  might  issue  forth. 
The  robbers  held  on.  From  the  volume  of  fire  their  numbers  were 
known  as  two  hundred — desperate  odds,  but  it  was  night,  and  the 
night  is  always  in  league  with  the  weakest. 

Disposed  among  the  rocks,  about  the  roots  and  the  trunks  of  the 
trees,  the  Americans  fired  in  skirmishing  order  and  at  will.  Three 
rapid  and  persistent  times  the  rush  of  the  guerrillas  came  as  a  great 
wave  upon  the  little  handful,  a  lurid  wreath  of  light  all  along  its 
front,  and  a  noise  that  was  appalling  in  the  darkness.  Nothing  so 
terrifies  as  the  oscillation  and  the  roar  of  a  hurricane  that  is  invis- 
ible. Hard  by  the  road,  Kirtley  kept  his  grasp  upon  the  rock. 
Nothing  shook  that — nothing  shook  the  tension  of  its  grim  en- 
durance. 

The  last  volley  beat  full  into  the  faces  of  all.  A  soldier  fell  for- 
ward into  the  darkness. 


340  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION'  TO  MEXICO; 

"  Who's  hurt?"  and  the  clear  voice  of  Kirtley  rang  out  "with- 
out a  tremor. 

"  It's  me,  Jim;  it's  Walker.  Hard  hit  in  the  shoulder;  but  thank 
God  for  the  breech  loader,  a  fellow  can  load  and  fire  with  one  sound 
arm  left." 

Bleeding  through  the  few  rags  stuffed  into  the  wound,  and  faint 
from  much  weakness  and  pain,  Walker  mounted  again  to  his  post 
and  fought  on  till  the  struggle  was  ended. 

Time  passed,  but  lengthily.  Nine  of  the  twenty  were  wounded, 
all  slightly,  however,  save  Walker — thanks  to  the  darkness  and  the 
ledge  that  seemed  planted  there  by  a  Providence  that  meant  to 
succor  steadfast  courage  and  devotion.  The  ambulance  was  done 
and  the  wounded  were  placed  therein. 

"  It  can  travel  but  slowly  in  the  night,"  said  Kirtley,  to  William 
Fell,  who  had  stood  by  his  side  through  all  the  bitter  battle,  "and 
we  must  paralyze  pursuit  a  little." 

"  Paralyze  it— how  ?  " 

"  By  a  sudden  blow,  such  as  a  prize  fighter  gives  when  he  strikes 
below  the  belt.  By  a  charge  some  good  hundred  paces  in  the  midst 
of  them." 

Fell  answered  laconically : 

"  Desperate  but  reasonable.  I  have  seen  such  things  done.  Will 
it  take  long  ?  " 

"  Twenty  minutes  all  told,  and  there  will  be  but  eleven  of  us. 
The  nine  who  are  wounded  must  go  back." 

The  horses  were  brought  and  mounted.  Walker  could  scarcely 
sit  in  his  saddle.  As  he  rode  to  the  rear,  two  of  his  comrades  sup- 
ported him.  The  parting  was  ominous — the  living,  perhaps,  taking 
leave  of  the  dead. 

Far  into  the  night  and  the  unknown  the  desperate  venture  held 
its  way.  Two  deep  the  handful  darted  out  from  behind  the  barri- 
cade, tiring  at  the  invisible.  Specter  answered  specter,  and  only 
the  ringing  of  the  revolvers  was  real.  The  impetus  of  the  charge 
was  such  that  the  line  of  the  robbers'  fire  was  passed  before,  reined 
up  and  countermarching,  the  forlorn  hope  could  recede  as  a  wave 
that  carried  the  undertow.  The  reckless  gallop  bore  its  planted 
fruit.  Back  through  the  pass  unharmed  the  men  rode,  and  on  by 
the  ledge,  and  into  Sumapetla.  No  pursuit  came  after.  The  fire 
of  the  guerrillas  ceased  ere  the  charge  had  been  spent,  and  when 
the  morning  came  there  was  the  camp,  and  a  thousand  blessings  for 
the  bold  young  leader  who  had  held  his  own  so  well,  and  kept  his 
faith  as  he  had  kept  the  fort  on  its  perch  among  the  mountains. 

It  was  a  large  city  set  upon  a  hill  that  loomed  up  through  the 
mists  of  the  evening — a  city  seen  from  afar  and  musical  with  many 
vesper  bells.  Peace  stood  in  the  ranks  of  the  sentinel  corn,  and 
fed  with  the  cattle  that  browsed  by  the  streams  in  the  meadows. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  341 

Peace  came  on  the  wings  of  the  twilight  and  peopled  the  grasses 
with  songs  that  soothed,  and  many  toned  voices  that  made  for  the 
earth  a  symphony.  Days  of  short  parade  and  longer  merry-mak- 
ing dawned  for  the  happy  soldiery.  The  sweet,  unbroken  south  wind 
brought  no  dust  of  battle  from  the  palms  and  the  orange  blossoms 
by  the  sea.  Couriers  came  and  went,  and  told  of  peace  throughout 
the  realm  ;  of  robber  bands  surrendering  to  the  law  ;  of  railroads 
pknned  and  parks  adorned  ;  of  colonists  arriving  and  foreign  ships 
in  all  l he  ports  ;  of  roads  made  safe  for  travel,  and  public  virtue 
placed  at  premium  in  the  marketlists  ;  of  prophecies  that  brightened 
all  the  future,  and  to  the  Empire  promised  an  Augustan  age.  The 
night  and  the  sky  were  at  peace  as  the  city  grew  larger  and  larger 
on  its  hill,  and  a  silence  came  to  the  ranks  of  the  Expedition  that 
was  not  broken  until  the  camp  became  a  bivouac  with  the  goddess 
of  plenty  to  make  men  sing  of  fealty  and  obeisance. 

It  was  the  City  of  Queretaro. 

Yonder  ruined  convent,  its  gateway  crumbling  to  decay,  its 
fountains  strewn  with  bits  of  broken  shrubs  and  flowers,  held  the 
sleeping  Emperor  the  night  the  traitor  Lopez  surrendered  all  to  an 
Indian  vengeance  and  compassion.  When  that  Emperor  awoke  he 
ha^  been  dreaming.  Was  it  of  Miramar  and  "poor  Carlota?" 

The  convent  was  at  peace  then,  and  the  fountains  were  all  at 
play.  Two  bearded  Zouaves  stood  in  its  open  door,  looking  out 
curiously  upon  the  serried  ranks  of  the  Americans  as  they  rode 
slowly  by. 

Yonder,  on  the  left  where  a  hill  arises,  the  capture  was  made; 
yonder  the  Austrian  cried  out  in  the  agony  of  this  last  desertion 
and  betrayal: 

"  Is  there  then  no  bullet  for  me?" 

Later,  when  the  bullets  found  his  heart,  they  found  an  image 
there  that  entered  with  his  spirit  into  heaven — the  image  of  "Poor 
Carlota." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

QUITE  a  large  concentration  of  Americans  had  taken  place  in 
the  City  of  Mexico.  Many  of  these  were  penniless ;  all  of  them 
were  soldiers.  As  long  as  they  believed  in  the  luck,  or  the  fortune, 
or  the  good  destiny  of  Shelby — and  that,  being  a  born  soldier,  the 
Empire  must  needs  see  and  recognize  those  qualities  which  even 
his  enemies  had  described  as  magnificent — they  were  content  to 
wait  for  Shelby's  arrival,  living  no  man  knew  how,  hungry  always, 
sometimes  sad,  frequently  in  want  of  a  roll  or  a  bed — but  turning 
ever  their  faces  fair  to  the  sunrise,  saying,  it  may  be  a  little 
reproachfully,  to  the  sun:  "  What  hast  thou  in  store  for  us  this  day, 
oh!  King?" 

Maximilian  was  like  a  man  who  had  a  desperate  race  before 
him,  and  who  had  started  out  to  win  it.  The  pace  in  the  beginning 
was  therefore  terrible.  So  firm  was  the  stride,  so  tense  were  the 
muscles,  so  far  in  the  rear  were  all  competitiors,  that  opposition  had 
well-nigh  abandoned  the  contest  and  resistance  had  become  so 
enfeebled  as  to  be  almost  an  absolute  mockery. 

In  the  noonday  of  the  struggle  a  halt  was  had.  There  were  so 
many  sweet  and  odorous  flowers,  so  many  nights  that  were  almost 
divine,  so  much  of  shade  and  luxury  and  ease,  so  much  of  music 
by  the  wayside,  and  so  many  hands  that  were  held  out  to  him  for 
the  grasping,  that  the  young  Austrian,  schooled  in  the  luxuries  of 
literature  and  the  pursuits  of  science,  sat  himself  down  just  when 
the  need  was  sorest  and  smoked  and  dreamed  and  planned  and 
wrote  and— died. 

Maximilian  was  never  a  soldier.  Perhaps  he  was  no  statesman 
as  well.  Most  certainly  all  the  elements  of  a  politician  were  want- 
ing in  his  character,  which  was  singularly  sweet,  trusting  and  affec- 
tionate. To  sign  a  death  warrant  gave  him  nights  of  solitude  and 
remorse.  Alone  with  his  confessor  he  would  beseech  in  prayer  the 
merciful  God  to  show  to  him  that  mercy  he  had  denied  to  others. 
On  the  eve  of  an  execution  he  had  been  known  to  flee  from  his  cap- 
ital as  if  pursued  by  some  horrible  nightmare.  He  could  not  kill, 
when,  to  reign  as  a  foreigner,  it  was  necessary  to  kill,  as  said  Will- 
iam the  Conqueror,  until  the  balance  is  about  even  between  those 
who  came  over  with  you  and  those  whom  you  found  upon  your 
arrival . 

The  Emperor  had  given  shelter  to  some  honored  and  august 
Americans.  Commodore  M.  F.  Maury,  who  had  preceded  the 
Expedition,  and  who  had  brought  his  great  fame  and  his  transcend- 

343 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  343 

ent  abilities  to  the  support  of  the  Empire,  had  been  made  the 
Imperial  Commissioner  of  Immigration.  Entering  at  once  upon  an 
energetic  discharge  of  his  duties,  lie  had  secured  a  large  and  valua- 
ble grant  of  land  near  the  city  of  Cordova,  which,  even  as  early  as 
September,  1865,  was  being  rapidly  surveyed  and  opened  up  for 
civilization.  Agents  of  colonization  had  been  sent  to  the  United 
States,  and  reports  were  constantly  being  received  of  their  cordial 
and  sometimes  enthusiastic  reception  by  the  people,  from  New 
Orleans  to  Dubuque,  Iowa,  and  from  New  York  westward  to  San 
Antonio,  Texas.  There  was  a  world  of  people  ready  to  emigrate. 
One  in  five  of  all  the  thousands  would  have  been  a  swart,  strapping 
fellow,  fit  for  any  service  but  best  for  the  service  of  a  soldier. 

Therefore,  when  these  things  were  told  to  Shelby,  riding  down 
from  the  highlands  about  Queretero  to  the  lowlands  about  Mexico, 
he  rubbed  his  hands  as  one  who  feels  a  steady  flame  by  the  bivouac- 
fire  of  a  winter's  night,  and  spoke  out  gleefully  to  Langhorne  • 

"We  can  get  forty  thousand  and  take  our  pick.  Young  men 
for  war,  and  only  young  men  emigrate.  This  Commodore  Maury 
seems  to  sail  as  well  upon  the  land  as  upon  the  water.  It  appears 
to  me  that  we  shall  soon  see  the  sky  again.  What  do  you  say, 
Captain?" 

Langhorne  answered  him  laconically: 

"The  French  are  not  friendly — that  is  to  say,  they  want  no  sol- 
diers from  among  us.  You  will  not  be  permitted  to  recruit  even  so 
much  as  a  front  and  a  rear  rank;  and  if  this  is  what  you  mean  by 
seeing  the  sky,  then  the  sky  is  as  far  away  as  ever." 

It  was  npt  long  before  the  sequel  proved  which  of  the  two  was 
right. 

Gen.  John  B.  Magruder,  who  had  also  preceded  the  Expedition, 
and  who  had  known  Marshal  Bazaine  well  in  the  Crimea,  was  com- 
missioned Surveyor-General  of  the  Empire  through  French  influ- 
ence, and  assigned  to  duty  with  Commodore  Maury.  He  had 
spoken  twice  to  the  Marshal  in  behalf  of  Shelby,  and  spoken 
frankly  and  boldly  at  that.  He  got  in  reply  what  Jeanningros  had 
got  and  Depreuil  and  Douay  and  all  of  them.  He  got  this  sen- 
tentious order: 

"Bid  Shelby  march  immediately  to  Mexico." 

General  Preston,  who  through  much  peril  and  imminent  risk  by 
night  and  day  had  penetrated  to  the  Capital,  even  from  Piedras 
Negras,  had  begged  and  pleaded  for  permission  to  return  with  such 
authority  vouchsafed  to  Shelby  as  would  enable  him  to  recruit 
his  corps.  Preston  fared  like  the  rest.  For  answer  he  also  got 
the  order: 

"Bid  Shelby  march  immediately  to  Mexico  " 

And  so  he  marched  on  into  the  glorious  land  between  Queretaro 
and  the  Capital,  and  into  the  glorious  weather,  no  guerrillas  now  to 


344  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

keep  watch  against,  no  robbers  anywhere  about  the  hills  or  the 
fords.  The  French  were  everywhere  in  the  sunshine.  Their 
picquets  were  upon  all  the  roads.  The  villages  contained  their  can- 
tonments. There  was  peace  and  prosperity  and  a  great  rest  among 
all  the  people.  The  women  laughed  in  the  glad  land,  and  the  voices 
of  many  children  told  of  peaceful  days  and  of  the  fatness  of  the 
field  and  the  vine — of  the  streams  that  ran  to  the  sea,  and  uplands 
green  with  leaf  or  gray  with  ripening  grain. 

Maybe  Fate  rests  its  head  upon  its  two  hands  at  times,  and  thinks 
of  what  little  things  it  shall  employ  to  make  or  mar  a  character — 
save  or  lose  a  life — banish  beyond  the  light  or  enter  into  and  possess 
forevermore  a  Paradise. 

The  march  was  running  by  meadow  and  river,  and  the  swelling 
of  billowy  wheat,  and  great  groves  of  orange  tflees  wherein  the  sun- 
shine hid  itself  at  noon  with  the  breeze  and  the  mocking  birds. 

It  was  far  into  the  evening  that  John  Thrailkill  sat  by  the  fire  of 
his  mess,  smoking  and  telling  brave  stories  of  the  brave  days  that 
were  dead.  Others  were  grouped  about  in  dreaming  indolence  or 
silent  fancy — thinking,  it  may  be,  of  the  northern  land  with  its 
pines  and  firs — of  great  rolling  waves  of  prairie  and  plain,  of  forests 
where  cabins  were  and  white-haired  children  all  at  play. 

Thrailkill  was  a  guerrilla  who  never  slept — that  is  to  say  who 
never  knew  the  length  or  breadth  of  a  bed  from  Sumter  to  Appo- 
mattox.  Some  woman  in  Platte  county  had  made  him  a  little  black 
flag,  under  which  he  fought.  This,  worked  in  the  crown  of  his 
hat,  satisfied  him  with  his  loyalty  to  his  lady-love.  In  addition  to 
all  this,  he  was  one  among  the  best  pistol  shots  in  a  command  where 
all  were  excellent. 

Perhaps  neither  before  nor  since  the  circumstance  here  related 
has  anything  so  quaint  in  recklessness  or  bravado  been  recorded  this 
side  of  the  Crusades.  Thrailkill  talked  much,  but  then  he  had 
fought  much,  and  fighting  men  love  to  talk  now  and  then.  Some 
border  story  of  broil  or  battle,  wherein,  at  desperate  odds,  he  had 
done  a  desperate  deed,  came  uppermost  as  the  night  deepened,  and 
the  quaint  and  scarred  guerrilla  was  overgenerous  in  the  share  he 
took  of  the  killing  and  the  plunder. 

A  comrade  by  his  side,  Anthony  West,  doubted  the  story  and 
ridiculed  its  narration.  Thrailkill  was  not  swift  to  anger  for  one  so 
thoroughly  reckless,  but  on  this  night  he  arose,  every  hair  in  his 
bushy  beard  bristling. 

"  You  disbelieve  me,  it  seems,"  he  said,  bending  over  the  other 
until  he  could  look  into  his  eyes,  "  and  for  the  skeptic  there  is  only 
the  logic  of  a  blow.  Is  this  real,  and  this?"  and  Thrailkill  smote 
West  twice  in  the  face  with  his  open  hand — once  on  either  cheek. 
No  insult  could  be  more  studied,  open  and  unpardonable. 

Comrades  interfered  instantly,  or  there  would  have  been  blood 
shed  in  the  heart  of  the  camp  and  by  the  flames  of  the  bivouac  fire. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  345 

Each  was  very  cool — each  knew   what  the  morrow  would  bring 
forth,  without  a  miracle. 

The  camp  was  within  easy  reach  of  a  town  that  was  more  of  a  vil- 
lage than  a  town.  It  had  a  church  and  a  priest,  and  a  regular  Don 
of  an  Alcalde  who  owned  leagues  of  arable  land  and  two  hundred 
game  cocks  besides.  For  Shelby's  especial  amusement  a  huge  main 
was  organized  and  a  general  invitation  given  to  all  who  desired  to 
attend. 

The  contest  was  to  begin  at  noon.    Before  the  sun  had  risen 
Capt.  James  H.  Gillette  came  to  Thrailkill,  who  was  wrapped  up  in 
his  blankets,  and  said  to  him: 
'*  I  have  a  message  for  you." 
"  It  is  not  long,  I  hope." 
"  Not  very  long,  but  very  plain." 

"Yes,  yes,  they  are  all  alike.  I  have  seen  such  before.  Wait 
'or  me  a  few  minutes." 

Thrailkill  found  Isaac  Berry,  and   Berry  in  turn  soon  found 
illette. 

The  note  was  a  challenge,  brief  and  peremptory.    Some  confer- 
nces  followed,  and  the  terms  were  agreed  upon.     These  were  sav- 
ge  enough  for  an  Indian.     Colt's  pistols,  dragoon  size,  were  the 
weapons,  but  only  one  of  them  was  to  be  loaded.     The  other,  empty 
in  every  chamber,  was  to  be  placed  alongside  the  loaded  one.     Then 
a  blanket  was  to  cover  both,  leaving  the  butt  of  each  exposed.     He 
who  won  the  toss  was  to  make  the  first  selection  and  Thrailkill  won. 
The  loaded  and  the  unloaded  pistol  lay  hidden  beneath  the  blanket, 
the  two  handles  so  nearly  alike  that  there  was  noappreciable  differ- 
ence.   Thrailkill  walked  up  to  the  tent  whistling  a  tune.    West 
d  behind  him,  watching  with  a  face  that  was  set  as  a  flint.    The 
rst  drew,  cast  his  eyes  along  the  cylinder,  saw  that  it  was  loaded, 
smiled.     The  last  drew— every  chamber  was  empty.     Death 
as  his  portion  as  absolutely  and  as  certainly  as  if  death  already 
by  his  side.     Yet  he  made  no  sign  other  than  to  look  up  to 
e  sky.     Was  it  to  be  his  last  look? 

The  terms  were  ferocious,  yet  neither  second  had  protested 
ainst  them.  It  seemed  as  if  one  man  was  to  murder  another 
ause  one  had  been  lucky  in  the  toss  of  a  silver  dollar.  As  the 
ase  stood,  Thrailkill  had  the  right  to  fire  six  sTwts  at  West  before 
West  had  the  right  to  grasp  even  so  much  as  a  loaded  pistol,  and 
Thrailkill  was  known  for  his  deadly  skill  throughout  the  ranks  of 
the  whole  Expedition. 

The  two  were  to  meet  just  at  sunset,  and  the  great  cock  main 
was  at  noon.  To  this  each  principal  went,  and  each  second,  and 
before  the  main  was  over  the  life  of  a  man  stood  as  absolutely  upon 
the  prowess  of  a  bird  as  the  spring  and  its  leaves  upon  the  rain  and 
the  sunshine. 


346  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

And  thus  it  came  about : 

In  Mexico  cock-fighting  is  a  national  recreation,  perhaps  it  is  a 
national  blessing  as  well.  Men  engage  in  it  when  they  would  be 
robbing  else,  and  waylaying  couriers  bearing  specie,  and  haunting 
the  mountain  gorges  until  the  heavy  trains  of  merchandise  entered 
slowly  in  to  be  swallowed  up. 

The  priests  fight  there,  and  the  fatter  the  padre  the  finer  his 
chicken.  From  the  prayer-book  to  the  pit  is  an  easy  transition,  and 
no  matter  the  aves  so  only  the  odds  are  in  favor  of  the  church.  It  is 
upon  the  Sundays  that  all  the  pitched  battles  begin.  After  the 
matin  bells  the  matches.  When  it  is  vespers,  for  some  there  has 
been  a  stricken  and  for  some  a  victorious  field.  No  matter  again — for 
all  there  is  absolution. 

The  Alcalde  of  the  town  of  Linares  was  a  jolly,  good-conditioned 
Mexican,  who  knew  a  bit  of  English,  picked  up  in  California,  and 
who  liked  the  Americans  but  for  two  things — their  hard  drinking 
and  their  hard  swearing.  Finding  any  ignorant  of  these  accom- 
plishments, there  flowed  never  any  more  for  them  a  stream  of  friend- 
ship from  the  Alcalde's  fountain.  It  became  dry  as  suddenly  as  a 
spring  in  the  desert. 

Shelby  won  his  heart  by  sending  him  a  case  of  elegant  cognac — 
a  present  from  Douay — and  therefore  was  the  main  improvised 
which  was  to  begin  at  noon. 

The  pit  was  a  great  circle  in  the  midst  of  a  series  of  seats  that 
arose  the  one  above  the  other.  Over  the  entrance,  which  was  a 
gateway  opening  like  the  lids  of  a  book,  was  a  chair  of  state,  an 
official  seat  occupied  by  the  Alcalde.  Beside  him  sat  a  bugler  in 
uniform.  At  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  a  battle  this  bugler, 
watching  the  gestures  of  the  Alcalde,  blew  triumphant  or  penitential 
strains  acordingly  as  the  Alcalde's  favorite  lost  or  won.  As  the 
main  progressed  the  notes  of  gladness  outnumbered  those  of  sorrow. 

A  born  cavalryman  is  always  suspicious.  He  looks  askance  at 
the  woods,  the  fences,  the  ponds,  the  morning  fogs,  the  road  that 
forks  and  crosses,  and  the  road  that  runs  into  the  'rear  of  a  halted 
column,  or  into  either  flank  at  rest  in  bivouac.  It  tries  one's  nerves 
so  to  fumble  at  uncertain  girths  in  the  darkness,  a  rain  of  bullets 
pouring  down  at  the  outposts  and  no  shelter  anywhere  for  a  long 
week's  marching. 

And  never  at  any  time  did  Shelby  put  aught  of  faith  in  Mexican 
friendship,  or  aught  of  trust  in  Mexican  welcome  and  politeness. 
His  guard  was  perpetual,  and  his  intercourse  like  his  marching,  was 
always  in  skirmishing  order.  Hence  one-half  the  forces  of  the 
expedition  were  required  to  remain  in  camp  under  arms,  pre- 
pared for  any  emergency,  while  the  other  half,  free  of  restraint, 
could  accept  the  Alcalde's  invitation  or  not  as  they  saw  fit.  The 
most  of  them  attended.  With  the  crowd  went  Thrailkill  and  West, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  347 

Gillette  and  Berry.  All  the  village  was  there.  The  pit  had  no 
caste.  Benevolent  priests  mingled  with  their  congregations  and 
bet  their  pesos  on  their  favorites.  Lords  of  many  herds  and  acres, 
and  mighty  men  of  the  country  round  about,  the  Dons  of  the  haci- 
endas pulled  off  their  hats  to  the  peons,  and  staked  their  gold  against 
the  greasy  silver  palm  to  palm.  Fair  senoritas  shot  furtive  glances 
along  the  ranks  of  the  soldiers — glances  that  lingered  long  upon  the 
Saxon  outline  of  their  faces  and  retreated  only  when  to  the  light  of 
curiosity  there  had  been  added  that  of  unmistakable  admiration. 

The  bugle  sounded  and  the  weighing  began.  The  sport  was  new 
to  many  of  the  spectators — to  a  few  it  was  a  sealed  book.  Twenty- 
five  cocks  were 'matched — all  magnificent  birds,  not  so  large  as  those 
fought  in  America  but  as  pure  in  game  and  as  rich  in  plumage. 
There,  too,  the  fighting  is  more  deadly,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  more 
rapid  and  fatal.  The  heels  used  have  been  almost  thrown  aside 
here.  In  the  north  and  west  absolutely,  in  New  Orleans  very 
nearly  so.  These  heels,  wrought  of  the  most  perfect  steel  and 
curved  like  a  scimitar,  have  an  edge  almost  exquisite  in  its  keen- 
ness. They  cut  asunder  like  a  sword-blade.  Failing  in  instant 
death,  they  inflict  mortal  wounds.  Before  there  is  mutilation  there 
is  murder. 

To  the  savage  reality  of  combat  there  was  added  the  atoning 
insincerities  of  music.  These  diverted  the  drama  of  its  premedita- 
tion, and  gave  to  it  an  air  of  surprise  that,  in  the  light  of  an  accom- 
modating conscience,  passed  unchallenged  for  innocence.  In 
Mexico  the  natives  rarely  ask  questions — the  strangers  never. 

Shelby  seated  himself  by  the  side  of  the  Alcalde,  the  first  five  or 
six  notes  of  a  charge  were  sounded  and  the  battle  began.  There- 
after with  varying  fortunes  it  ebbed  and  flowed  through  all  the  long 
afternoon.  Aroused  into  instant  championship,  the  Americans 
espoused  the  side  of  this  or  that  bird,  and  lost  or  won  as  the  fates 
decreed.  There  was  but  scant  gold  among  them,  all  counted,  but 
twenty  dollars  or  twenty  thousand,  it  would  have  been  the  same.  A 
nation  of  born  gamblers,  it  needed  not  a  cock  fight  to  bring  all  the 
old  national  traits  uppermost.  A  dozen  or  more  were  on  the  eve  of 
wagering  their  carbines  and  revolvers,  when  a  sign  from  Shelby 
checked  the  unsoldierly  impulse  and  brought  them  back  instantly  to 
a  realization  of  duty. 

Thrailkill  had  lost  heavily — that  is  to  say  every  dollar  he  owned  on 
earth.  West  had  won  without  cessation — won  in  spite  of  his  judg- 
ment, which  was  often  adverse  to  the  wagers  he  laid.  In  this, 
maybe,  Fate  was  but  flattering  him.  Of  what  use  would  all  his 
winnings  be  after  the  sunset  ? 

It  was  the  eighteenth  battle,  and  a  magnificent  cock  was 
brought  forth  who  had  the  crest  of  an  eagle  and  the  eye  of  a  basilisk. 
More  sonorous  than  the  bugle,  his  voice  had  blended  war  and  mel- 


348  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

odyinit.  The  glossy  ebony  of  his  plumage  needed  only  the  sun- 
light to  make  it  a  mirror  where  courage  might  have  arrayed  itself. 
In  an  instant  he  was  everybody's  favorite — in  his  favor  all  the  odds 
were  laid.  Some  few  clustered  about  his  antagonist — among  them  a 
sturdy  old  priest  who  did  what  he  could  to  stem  the  tide  rising  in 
favor  of  the  bird  of  the  beautiful  plumage. 

Infatuated  like  the  rest,  Thrailkill  would  have  staked  a  crown 
upon  the  combat ;  he  did  not  have  even  so  much  as  one  real.  The 
man  was  miserable.  Once  he  walked  to  the  door  and  looked  out. 
If  at  that  time  he  had  gone  forth,  the  life  of  West  would  have  gone 
with  him,  but  he  did  not  go.  As  he  returned  he  met  Gillette,  who 
spoke  to  him : 

"  You  do  not  bet,  and  the  battle  is  about  to  begin." 

"I  do  not  bet  because  I  have  not  won.  The  pitcher  that  goes 
eternally  to  a  well  is  certain  to  be  broken  at  last." 

"And  yet  you  are  fortunate." 

Thrailkill  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  looked  at  his  watch.  It 
wanted  an  hour  yet  of  the  sunset.  The  tempter  still  tempted  him. 

"You  have  no  money,  then.    Would  you  like  to  borrow  ?  " 

"No." 

Gilette  mused  awhile.  They  were  tieing  on  the  last  blades,  and 
the  old  priest  had  cried  out: 

"  A  doubloon  to  a  doubloon  against  the  black  cock  ! " 

Thrailkill's  eyes  glistened.  Gillette  took  him  by  the  arm.  He 
spoke  rapidly,  but  so  low  and  distinct  that  every  word  was  a  thrust: 

"  You  do  not  want  to  kill  West — the  terms  are  murderous — you 
have  been  soldiers  together — you  can  take  the  priest's  bet — here  is 
the  money.  But,"  he  looked  him  fair  in  the  face,  "  if  you  win  you 
pay  me — if  you  lose  I  have  absolute  disposal  of  your  fire." 

"  Ah  ! "  and  the  guerrilla  straightened  himself  up  all  of  a  sud- 
den," what  would  you  do  with  my  fire?  " 

' '  Keep  your  hands  clean  from  innocent  blood,  John  Thrailkill. 
Is  not  that  enough?" 

The  money  was  accepted,  the  wager  with  the  priest  was  laid,  and 
the  battle  began.  When  it  was  over  the  beautiful  black  cock  lay 
dead  on  the  sands  of  the  arena,  slain  by  the  sweep  of  one  terrific 
blow,  while  over  him,  in  pitiless  defiance,  his  antagonist,  dun  in 
plumage  and  ragged  in  crest  and  feather,  stood  a  victor,  conscious 
of  his  triumph  and  his  prowess. 

The  sun  was  setting,  and  two  men  stood  face  to  face  in  the  glow 
of  the  crimson  sky.  On  either  flank  of  them  a  second  took  his 
place,  a  look  of  sorrow  on  the  bold  bronzed  face  of  Berry,  the  light 
of  anticipation  in  the  watchful  eyes  of  the  calm  Gillette.  Well 
kept,  indeed,  had  been  the  secret  of  the  tragedy.  The  group  who 
stood  alone  on  the  golden  edge  of  the  evening  were  all  who  knew 
the  ways  and  the  means  of  the  work  before  them.  West  took  his 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  349 

place  as  a  man  who  had  shaken  hands  with  life  and  knew  how  to 
die.  Thrailkill  had  never  been  merciful,  and  this  day  of  all  days 
were  the  chances  dead  against  a  moment  of  pity  or  forgiveness. 

The  ground  was  a  little  patch  of  grass  beside  a  stream,  having 
trees  in  the  rear  of  it,  and  trees  over  beyond  the  reach  of  the  waters 
running  musically  to  the  sea.  In  the  distance  there  were  houses 
from  which  peaceful  smoke  ascended.  Through  the  haze  of  the 
gathering  twilight  the  sound  of  bells  came  from  the  homeward-plod- 
ding herds,  and  from  the  fields  the  happy  voices  of  the  reapers. 

West  stood  full  front  to  his  adversary— certain  of  death.  He 
expected  nothing  beyond  a  quick  and  speedy  bullet,  one  which 
would  kill  without  inflicting  needless  pain. 

The  word  was  given.  Thrailkill  threw  his  pistol  out,  covered 
his  antagonist  once  fairly,  looked  once  into  his  eyes,  and  saw  that 
they  did  not  quail,  and  then,  with  a  motion  as  instantaneous  as  it 
was  unexpected,  lifted  it  up  overhead  and  fired  in  the  air. 

Gillette  had  won  his  wager. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  city  of  all  men's  hopes  and  fears  and  aspirations;  the  city 
of  the  swart  cavaliers  of  Cortez  and  the  naked  warriors  of  Monte- 
zuma,  who  rushed  with  bare  bosom  on  lance  and  sword-blade;  the 
city  under  the  shadow  of  the  old-world  Huasco,  that  volcano,  it 
may  be,  that  was  in  its  youth  when  Ararat  bore  aloft  the  ark  as  a 
propitiation  to  the  God  alike  of  the  rainbow  and  the  deluge,  and 
that  when  the  floods  subsided  sent  its  lava  waves  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean;  the  city  which  had  seen  the  cold  glitter  of  Northern  steel 
flash  along  the  broken  way  of  Conteras,  and  wind  itself  up,  striped 
thick  with  blood,  into  the  heart  of  Chepultepec;  the  city  filled  now 
with  Austrians  and  Belgians  and  Frenchmen  and  an  Emperor 
newly  crowned  with  manhood  and  valor,  and  an  Empress,  royal 
with  an  imperial  youth  and  beauty — the  city  of  Mexico  was  reached 
at  last. 

For  many  the  long  march  was  about  to  end,  for  others  to  begin 
again — longer,  drearier,  sterner  than  any  march  ever  yet  taken  for 
king  or  country — the  march  down  into  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 
and  over  beyond  the  River  and  into  the  unknown  and  eternal. 

Marshal  Bazaine  was  a  soldier  who  had  seen  service  in  Algeria, 
in  the  Crimea',  in  Italy — especially  at  Magenta — and  he  had  won  the 
baton  at  last  in  Mexico,  that  baton  the  First  Napoleon  declared 
might  be  in  the  knapsack  of  every  soldier.  The  character  of  the 
man  was  a  study  some  student  of  history  may  love  to  stumble  upon 
in  the  future.  Past  fifty,  white-haired  where  there  was  hair,  bald 
over  the  forehead  as  one  sees  all  Frenchmen  who  have  served  in 
Algeria,  he  made  a  fine  figure  on  horseback,  because  from  the  waist 
up  his  body  was  long,  lithe  and  perfectly  trained;  but  not  such  a 
fine  figure  on  foot,  because  the  proportion  was  illy  preserved  between 
the  two  extremities.  He  was  ambitious,  brave  to  utter  recklessness, 
crafty,  yet  outspoken  and  frank,  a  savage  aristocrat  who  had  mar- 
ried a  fair- faced  Spaniard  and  a  million,  merciless  in  discipline, 
beloved  of  his  troops,  adored  by  his  miltiary  family,  a  gambler  who 
had  been  known  to  win  a  thousand  ounces  on  a  single  card,  a  specu- 
lator and  the  owner  of  ships,  a  husband  whom  even  the  French 
called  true,  a  father  and  a  judge  who,  after  he  had  caressed  his 
infant,  voted  death  at  the  court-martial  so  often  that  one  officer  began 
to  say  to  another: 

"He  shoots  them  all." 

Bazaine  was  a  skillful  soldier.  As  long  as  it  was  war  with 
Juarez,  he  kept  Juarez  starving  and  running — sometimes  across  the 
Rio  Grande  into  Texas,  where  the  Federals  fed  him,  and  sometimes 

SCO 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAP  OP  THE  WAR.  351 

in  the  mountains  about  El  Paso,  never  despondent,  it  is  true,  yet 
never  well  filled  in  either  commissariat  or  cartridge-box.  After  the 
visit  of  General  Castelneau,  an  aid-de-camp  of  Napoleon,  and  the 
reception  of  positive  orders  of  evacuation,  the  Marshal  let  the  Lib- 
erals have  pretty  much  their  own  way,  so  that  they  neither  injured 
nor  interrupted  the  French  soldiers  coming  and  going  about  the 
country  at  will.  As  the  French  waves  receded  the  waves  of  the 
Juaristas  advanced.  Bazaine  sold  them  cannon  and  muskets  and 
much  ammunition,  it  is  said,  and  even  siege  guns  with  which  to  bat- 
ter down  the  very  walls  of  Maximilian's  palace  itself.  Those  who 
have  accused  him  of  this  have  slandered  and  a*bused  the  man.  He 
may  have  known  much  of  many  things,  of  ingratitude  not  one 
heart-throb.  Not  his  the  aggravation  of  evacuation,  the  sudden 
rending  asunder  of  the  whole  frame-work  of  Imperial  society,  the 
great  fear  that  fell  upon  all,  the  patriotic  uprisings  that  had  infec- 
tion and  jubilee  in  them,  the  massacre  of  Mexicans  who  had  favored 
the  Austrian,  the  breaking  up  of  all  schemes  for  emigration  and 
colonization,  and  the  ending  of  a  day  that  was  to  bring  the  cold, 
long  night  of  Queretaro. 

Rudolph,  Emperor  of  Germany,  who  was  born  in  1218,  and  who 
was  the  son  of  Albert  IV. ,  Count  of  Hapsburg,  was  the  founder  of 
that  family  to  which  Maximilian  belonged.  In  1282  Rudolph 
placed  his  son  Albert  on  the  throne  of  Austria,  and  thus  begins  the 
history  of  that  house  which  has  swayed  the  destinies  of  a  large  por- 
tion of  Europe  for  nearly  eight  hundred  years,  a  house  which, 
through  many  terrible  struggles,  has  gained  and  lost  and  fought  on 
and  ruled  on,  sometimes  wisely  and  sometimes  not,  yet  ever  ruling 
in  the  name  of  divine  right  and  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg. 

Through  the  force  of  marriage,  purchase  and  inheritance,  the 
State  of  Austria  grew  in  extent  beyond  that  of  any  other  in  the 
German  Empire.  In  1359  Rudolph  IV.  assumed  the  title  of  Arch- 
duke Palatine,  and  in  1363  his  reign  was  made  notorious  by  the  val- 
uable acquisition  of  the  Tyrol.  This  was  the  commencement  of  the 
history  of  the  Archdukes,  who  were  thereafter  assigned  to  the  high 
position  of  Emperor,  the  first  taken  from  among  them  being  Alfred 
•II. ,  who  was  chosen  in  1438.  The  marriage  of  the  bold,  unscrupu- 
lous and  ambitious  Maximilian  I.,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  to  Mary, 
daughter  of  Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  in  1477,  added  to 
Austria's  territorial  claim  largely,  and  embraced  Flanders,  Franche 
Comte4  and  all  the  Low  Countries.  In  1521  Ferdinand  I.  married 
Ann,  sister  of  Louis,  King  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia,  who  waskilled 
at  the  battle  of  Mohaez,  in  1526,  his  empire  being  absorbed  and 
incorporated  with  Austria.  Upon  the  events  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, Charles  V.  left  an  immortal  impress,  and  the  blood  of  this 
great  Emperor  was  in  the  veins  of  Maximilian  of  Mexico. 

In  1618  Europe,  alarmed  at  the  increasing  territorial  aggrandize- 
ment of  Austria,  and  torn  by  feuds  between  Protestants  and  Catho- 


352  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ,' 

lies,  saw  the  commencement  of  the  thirty  years' war.  It  terminated 
in  the  treaty  of  Westphalia  in  1648,  which  accomplished  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  German  States.  In  1713  Austria  gained  the  Italian 
provinces  by  the  treaty  of  Utrecht,  and  in  1726,  the  last  male  of  the 
House  of  Hapsburg,  Charles  II.,  died,  the  succession  falling  upon 
his  daughter,  Maria  Theresa.  She  was  succeeded  by  her  son, 
Joseph  II.,  and  in  1792,  at  the  age  of  twenty -two,  Francis  II.  suc- 
ceeded his  father,  Leopold  II.,  and  became  Emperor  of  Germany, 
King  of  Bohemia,  Hungaria,  etc.  His  reign  was  unusually  stormy, 
and  in  three  campaigns  against  the  French  he  lost  much  of  his  terri- 
tory and  was  forced 'into  the  unfortunate  treaty  of  Presburg.  In 
1804  he  assumed  the  title  of  Francis  I.,  Emperor  of  Austria,  and  in 
1806  yielded  up  that  of  Emperor  of  Germany.  Thus,  through  an 
unbroken  line,  male  and  female,  did  the  House  of  Hapsburg  hold 
the  title  of  Emperor  of  Germany  from  1437  to  1806.  Maria  Louisa, 
the  daughter  of  this  Francis,  was  married  to  the  great  Napoleon  in 
1810,  and  in  1813  her  father  was  in  arms  against  France,  and  in 
the  alliance  with  Russia,  Prussia  and  England.  In  1815  he  had 
regained  much  of  his  lost  territory,  and  had  succeeded  in  cementing 
more  firmly  than  ever  the  contending  elements  of  the  Austrian  empire. 

Francis  I.  died  in  1835,  leaving  the  throne  to  his  son  Ferdinand 
I.,  who,  in  consequence  of  the  political  revolution  of  1848,  the 
fatigue  of  state  affairs,  and  a  wretched  condition  of  health,  abdicated 
in  the  same  year,  in  favor  of  his  brother,  Archduke  Francis  Charles, 
who,  on  the  same  day,  transferred  his  right  to  the  throne  to  his 
eldest  son,  the  present  Emperor,  who  was  declared  of  age  at  eight- 
een. Hungary  refused  to  recognize  the  new  monarch,  and  consti- 
tuted a  republic  under  Kossuth,  April  14,  1849.  Bloody  and 
short-lived,  the  republic  was  conquered  and  crushed  under  the  feet 
of  the  Cossack  and  the  Croat. 

And  in  such  guise  is  this  history  given  of  one  who,  inheriting 
many  of  the  splendid  virtues  of  his  race,  was  to  inherit  some  of  its 
sorrows  and  "tragedies  as  well. 

Ferdinand  Maximilian,  Emperor  of  Mexico,  was  born  in  the 
palace  of  Schonbrun,  near  Vienna,  on  the  10th  day  of  July,  A.  D. 
1832.  He  was  the  second  son  of  Francis  Charles,  Archduke  of  Aus- 
tria, and  of  the  Archduchess  Frederica  Sophia.  His  eldest  brother 
was  Francis  Joseph  I.,  the  present  Emperor  of  the  Austrian  Empire. 
Two  younger  brothers  embraced  the  family — and  among  the  whol 
there  was  a  tenderness  and  affection  so  true  and  so  rare  in  statecraft 
that  in  remarking  it  to  the  mother  of  the  princes,  Marshal  McMahoi 
is  reported  to  have  said: 

"  Madam,  these  are  young  men  such  as  you  seldom  see,  am 
princes  such  as  you  never  see." 

In  height  Maximilian  was  six  feet  two  inches.     His  eyes  were  bli 
and  penetrating,  a  little  sad  at  times,  and  often  introspective.    Per- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  353 

haps  never  in  all  his,  life  had  there  ever  come  to  them  a  look  of  craft 
or  cruelty.  His  forehead  was  broad  and  high,  prominent  where 
ideality  should  abound,  wanting  a  little  in  firmness,  if  phrenology 
is  true,  yet  compact  enough  and  well  enough  proportioned  to  indi- 
cate resources  in  reserve  and  abilities  latent  and  easily  aroused.  To 
a  large  mouth  was  given  the  Hapsburg  lip,  that  thick,  protruding, 
semi-clef t  under  lip,  too  heavy  for  beauty,  too  immobile  for  features 
that,  under  the  iron  destiny  that  ruled  the  hour,  should  have  sug- 
gested Caesar  or  Napoleon.  A  great  yellow  beard  fell  in  a  wave  to 
his  waist.  At  times  this  was  parted  at  the  chin,  and  descended  in 
two  separate  streams,  as  it  were,  silkier,  glossier,  heavier  than  any 
yellow  beard  of  any  yellow-haired  Hun  or  Hungarian  that  had  fol- 
lowed him  from  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube. 

He  said  pleasant  and  courtly  things  in  German,  in  English,  Hun- 
garian, Slavonic,  French,  Italian  and  Spanish.  In  natural  kindness 
of  temper,  and  in  elegance  and  refinement  of  deportment,  he  sur- 
passed all  who  surrounded  him  and  all  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact. Noblemen  of  great  learning  and  cosmopolitan  reputation  were 
his  teachers.  Prince  Esteraze  taught  him  the  Hungarian  language; 
Count  de  Schnyder  taught  him  mathematics;  Thomas  Zerman 
taught  him  naval  tactics  and  the  Italian  language.  A  splendid 
horseman,  he  excelled  also  in  athletic  sports.  With  the  broadsword 
or  the  rapier  few  men  could  broak  down  his  guard  or  touch  him  with 
the  steel's  point. 

At  the  age  of  sixteen  he  visited  Greece,  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal, 
Madeira  and  Africa.  He  was  a  poet  who  wrote  sonnets  that  were 
set  to  music,  a  botanist,  a  book-maker,  the  captain  of  a  frigate,  an 
admiral.  He  did  not  love  to  see  men  die.  All  his  nature  was 
tenderly  human.  He  loved  flowers  and  music  and  statuary  and 
the  repose  of  the  home  circle  and  the  fireside.  He  had  a  palace 
called  Miramar,  which  was  a  paradise.  Here  the  messengers  found 
him  when  they  came  bearing  in  their  hands  the  crown  of  Mexico — 
a  gentle,  lovable  prince — adored  by  the  Italians  over  whom  he  had 
ruled,  the  friend  of  the  Third  Napoleon,  a  possible  heir  to  the 
throne  of  Austria,  a  chivalrous,  elegant,  polished  gentleman. 

How  he  died  the  world  knows  —  betrayed,  butchered,  shot  by  a 
dead  wall,  thinking  of  Carlotta. 

France  never  thoroughly  understood  the  war  between  the  States. 
Up  to  the  evacuation  of  Richmond  by  Lee,  Louis  Napoleon 
believed  religiously  in  the  success  of  the  Southern  Confederacy. 
An  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  with  President  Davis  was 
proposed  to  him  by  Minister  Slidell,  an  alliance  which  guaranteed 
to  him  the  absolute  possession  of  Mexico  and  the  undisturbed 
erection  of  an  empire  within  its  borders.  For  this  he  was  asked  to 
raise  the  blockade  at  Charleston  and  New  Orleans,  and  furnish  for 
offensive  operations  a  corps  of  75,000  French  soldiers.  He  declined 


354  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

the  alliance  because  he  believed  it  unnecessary.     Of  what  use  to 
hasten  a  result,  hear  gued,  which  in  the  end  would  be  inevitable? 

After  Appomattox  Court  House  he  awoke  to  something  like  a 
realization  of  the  drama  in  which  he  was  the  chief  actor.  The 
French  nation  clamored  against  the  occupation.  Its  cost  was  enor- 
mous in  blood  and  treasure.  America,  sullen  and  vicious,  and  victor 
in  a  gigantic  war,  looked  across  the  Rio  Grande  with  her  hand  upon 
her  sword.  Diplomacy  could  do  nothing  against  a  million  of  men  in 
arms.  It  is  probable  that  in  this  supreme  moment  Mr.  Seward 
revenged  on  France  the  degradation  forced  upon  him  by  the  Trent 
affair,  and  used  language  so  plain  to  the  Imperial  minister  that  all 
ideas  of  further  foothold  or  aggrandizement  in  the  new  world  were 
abandoned  at  once  and  for  ever. 

When  Shelby  arrived  in..  Mexico  the  situation  was  peculiar. 
Ostensibly  Emperor,  Maximilian  had  scarcely  anymore  real  author- 
ity than  the  Grand  Chamberlain  of  his  household.  Bazaine  was  the 
military  autocrat.  The  mints,  the  mines  and  the  custom  houses 
were  in  his  possession.  His  soldiers  occupied  all  the  ports  where 
exporting  and  importing  were  done.  Divided  first  into  military 
departments,  and  next  into  civil  departments,  a  French  general,  or 
colonel,  or  officer  of  the  line  of  some  grade,  commanded  each  of  the 
first,  and  an  Imperial  Mexican  of  some  kind,  generally  half  Juar- 
ista  and  half  robber,  commanded  each  of  the  last.  For  their  allies 
the  French  had  a  most  supreme  and  sovereign  contempt — a  contempt 
as  natural  as  it  was  undisguised.  Conflicts,  therefore,  necessarily 
occurred.  Civil  law,  even  in  sections  where  civil  law  might  have 
been  made  beneficial,  rarely  ever  lifted  its  head  above  the  barricade 
of  bayonets,  and  its  officers — finding  the  French  supreme  in  every- 
thing, especially  in  their  contempt — surrendered  whatever  of  dig- 
nity or  official  appreciation  belonged  to  them,  and  without  resign- 
ing or  resisting,  were  content  to  plunder  their  friends  or  traffic  with 
the  enemy. 

Perhaps  France  had  a  reason  or  two  for  dealing  thus  harshly 
with  the  civil  administration  of  affairs.  Maximilian  was  one  of 
the  most  unsuspecting  and  confiding  of  men.  He  actually  believed 
in  Mexican  faith  and  devotion — in  such  things  as  Mexican  patriot- 
ism and  love  of  peace  and  order.  He  would  listen  to  their  prom- 
ises and  become  enthusiastic;  to  their  plans  and  grow  convinced; 
to  their  oaths  and  their  pledges,  and  take  no  thought  for  to-morrow, 
when  the  oaths  were  to  become  false  and  the  pledges  violated. 
France  wished  to  arouse  him  from  his  unnatural  dream  of  trusting 
goodness  and  gentleness,  and  put  in  lieu  of  the  fatal  narcotic  more 
of  iron  and  blood. 

France  had  indeed  scattered  lives  freely  in  Mexico.  At  first 
England  and  Spain  had  joined  with  France  in  an  invasion  for  cer- 
tain feasible  and  specified  purposes,  none  of  which  purposes,  how- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAK.  355 

ever,  were  to  establish  an  empire,  enthrone  a  foreign  prince,  sup- 
port him  by  a  foreign  army,  seize  possession  of  the  whole  Mexican 
country,  govern  it  as  part  or  the  royal  possessions,  make  of  it  in 
time,  probably,  a  great  menace,  but  certain — whatever  the  future 
might  be — to  ruffle  the  feathers  pretty  roughly  upon  that  winged 
relation  of  the  great  American  eagle,  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

Before  the  occupation,  however,  Mexico  was  divided  into  two 
parties — that  of  the  Liberals,  led  by  Juarez,  and  that  of  the  church, 
its  political  management  in  the  hands  of  the  Archbishop,  its  mili- 
tary management  in  the  hands  of  Miramon.  Comonfort,  an  Uto- 
pian dreamer  and  Socialist,  yet  a  liberal  for  all  that,  renounced  the 
presidency  in  1858.  Thereupon  the  Capital  of  the  nation  was  seized 
by  the  church  party,  Miramon  at  its  head,  and  much  wrong  was 
done  to  foreigners,  so  much  wrong,,,  indeed,  that  from  it  the  alli- 
ance sprung  that  was  to  sow  all  over  the  country  a  terrible  crop  of 
armed  men. 

In  1861  England,  France  and  Spain  united  to  demand  from 
Mexico  the  payment  of  all  claims  owed  by  her,  and  to  demand  still 
further  and  stronger  some  absolute  guarantee  against  future  murders 
and  spoliations. 

England's  demands  were  based  upon  the  assertion  that  on  the 
16th  day  of  November,  1860,  Miramon  unlawfully  took  from  Eng- 
lish residents  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling.  This 
money  was  in  the  house  of  the  British  Legation.  The  house  was 
attacked,  stoned,  fired  into,  some  of  its  domestics  killed  and 
wounded,  and  the  Minister  himself  saved  with  difficulty.  After- 
ward, at  Tacubaya,  an  outlying  village  of  the  capital,  seventy-three 
Englishmen  were  brutally  murdered — shot  at  midnight  in  a  ditch, 
and  to  appease,  it  is  thought,  a  moment  of  savage  superstition  and 
cruelty.  To  this  day  it  is  not  known  even  in  Mexico  why  Miramon 
gave  his  consent  to  this  horrid  butchery.  In  other  portions  of  the 
country,  and  indeed  in  every  portion  of  it  where  there  were  English- 
men, they  were  insulted  with  impunity,  robbed  of  their  .possessions, 
often  imprisoned,  sometimes  murdered,  and  frequently  driven  forth 
penniless  from  among  their  tormentors. 

A  treaty  had  been  made  in  Paris,  in  1859,  between  Spain  and  the 
Church  party,  which  provided  for  the  payment  of  the  Spanish 
claims.  This  treaty  was  annulled  when  Juarez  came  into  power, 
and  the  refusal  was  peremptory  to  pay  a  single  dollar  to  Spain.  The 
somewhat  novel  declaration  was  also  made  that  the  Republic  of 
Mexico  owed  to  its  own  citizens  about  as  much  as  it  could  pay,  and 
that  when  discriminations  had  to  be  made  they  should  be  made 
against  the  foreigner.  Spain  became  furiously  indignant,  and  joined 
in  with  England  in  the  alliance. 

France  had  also  her  grievances.  A  Swiss  banker  named  Jecker, 
who  had  been  living  in  Mexico  a  few  years  prior  to  the  Expedition  of 


356  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

the  three  great  powers,  had  made  a  fortune  high  up  among  the  mill- 
ions. Miramon  looked  upon  Jecker  with  awe  and  admiration,  and 
from  friends  the  two  men  soon  became  to  be  partners.  A  decree 
was  issued  by  Miramon  on  the  29th  of  October,  1859,  providing  for 
the  issuance  of  three  millions  pounds  sterling  in  bonds.  These 
bonds  were  to  be  taken  for  taxes  and  import  duties,  were  to  bear 
six  per  cent,  interest,  and  were  to  have  the  interest  paid  for  five 
years  by  the  house  of  Jecker.  As  this  was  considerably  above  the 
average  life  of  the  average  Mexican  Government,  Miramon  felt  safe 
in  taking  no  thought  of  the  interest  after  Jecker  had  paid  for  the 
first  five  years.  Certain  regulations  also  provided  that  the  holders 
of  these  bonds  might  transfer  them  and  receive  in  their  stead 
Jecker's  bonds,  paying  a  certain  percentage  for  the  privilege  c  f  the 
transfer.  Jecker  was  to  issue  the  bonds  and  to  receive  five  per  cent, 
on  the  issue.  He  did  not,  however,  consummate  the  arracgement 
as  the  provisions  of  the  decree  required,  and  at  his  own  suggestion 
the  contract  was  modified.  At  last  the  result  narrowed  itself  down 
to  this:  the  Church  part  stood  bound  for  three  millions  seven  hun- 
dred and  twenty  thousand  pounds  sterling,  and  Jecker  found  him- 
self in  a  position  where  it  was  impossible  to  comply  with  his  con- 
tract. In  May,  1860,  his  house  suspended  payment.  His  creditors 
got  the  bonds,  the  Church  party  gave  place  to  the  Liberal  party, 
and  then  a  general  repudiation  came.  This  party  refused  to 
acknowledge  any  debt  based  upon  the  Miramon  Jecker  transaction, 
just  as  it  had  refused  to  carry  out  the  stipulations  of  a  sovereign 
treaty  made  with  Spain. 

The  most  of  Jecker's  creditors  were  Frenchmen,  and  France- 
resolved  to  collect  not  only  this  debt,  but  claims  to  the  amount  of 
twelve  millions  of  dollars  besides.  Failing  to  obtain  a  peaceful  set- 
tlement, late  in  the  year  1860,  the  French  Minister  left  the  Capital 
after  this  significant  speech  : 

"  If  there  shall  be  a  war  between  us  it  shall  be  a  war  of  destruc- 
tion." 

And  it  was. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  three  complaining  powers — England,  France  and  Spain  — 
met  in  London,  October,186l,  and  agreed  that  each  should  send  upon 
the  Expedition  an  equal  naval  force,  and  that  the  number  of  troops 
to  be  furnished  by  each  should  be  regulated  accordiu  ho  to  the  num 
her  of  subjects  which  the  respective  powers  had  in  Mexico.  It  was 
further  expressed  and  stipulated  that  the  intervention  should  only 
be  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  payment  of  the  claims  assumed 
to  be  due,  and  that  in  no  particular  was  any  movement  to  be  made 
looking  to  an  occupation  of  the  country.  England,  however,  was 
jdts satisfied  with  a  portion  of  France's  claim,  and  Spain  coincided 
with  England.  Notwithstanding  this  fact,  however,  a  joint  fleet 
was  sent  to  Vera  Cruz,  which  reached  its  destination  January  6, 
1862.  On  the  7th,  six  thousand  three  hundred  Spanish,  two  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  French,  and  eight  hundred  English  troops  were 
disembarked,  and  by  a  treaty  made  with  Juarez  at  Soledad,  and 
signed  February  19,  1862,  these  troops  were  permitted  to  leave  the 
fever  marshes  about  Vera  Cruz,  and  march  to  the  glorious  regions 
about  Orizava. 

Orizava,  on  the  National  Road  midway  between  Cordova  and 
Puebla,  is  a  city  whose  climate  and  whose  surroundings  might  recall 
to  any  mind  the  Garden  of  Eden.  Its  skies  are  always  blue,  its  air 
is  always  balmy,  its  women  are  always  beautiful,  its  fruit  is  always 
ripe,  and  its  sweet  repose  but  rarely  broken  by  the  clamor  of 
marauding  bands,  or  the  graver  warfare  of  more  ferocious 
revolutionists. 

To  admit  the  strangers  into  such  a  land,  sick  from  the  tossings 
of  the  sea,  and  weak  from  the  poison  of  the  low  lagoons,  was  worse 
for  Juarez  than  a  pitched  battle  wherein  the  victory  rested  with  the 
invaders.  Some  of  them  at  least  would  lay  hands  upon  it  for  its 
beauty  alone,  if  other  and  more  plausible  reasons  could  not  be 
found.  At  an  early  day,  however,  the  ambitious  designs  of  Napo- 
leon began  to  manifest  themselves,  There  were  some  protests 
made,  some  sharp  correspondence  had,  not  a  few  diplomatic  quar- 
rels indulged  in,  and  at  last,  to  cut  a  knot  they  could  not  untie,  the 
English  and  Spanish  troops  were  ordered  back  peremptorily  to 
Vera  Cruz,  the  two  nations  abandoning  the  alliance,  and  withdraw- 
ing their  forces  entirely  from  the  country.  This  left  the  French 
alone  and  unsupported.  The  treaty  of  Soledad  expired,  and  they 
were  ordered  by  Juarez  to  return  to  their  original  position.  For 
answer  there  was  an  immediate  attack. 

The  city  of  Peublo,  ninety  miles  north  from  Orizava,  strong  by 
nature,  had  been  still  more  strongly  fortified,  and  was  held  by  a 


358  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

garrison  of  twenty  thousand  Liberals,  under  the  command  of  Sara- 
gosa,  an  ardent  and  impassioned  young  Mexican,  as  brave  as  he 
was  patriotic.  General  Lorencez,  who  commanded  the  French, 
without  waiting  for  reinforcements,  and  being  destitute  of  a  siege 
train,  dashed  his  two  thousand  soldiers  against  the  ramparts  of 
Pueblo,  and  had  them  shattered  and  repulsed.  The  battle  lasted  a 
whole  day  through,  and  thrice  the  Third  Zouaves  passed  the  ditch, 
and  thrice  they  were  driven  back.  At  nightfall  a  retreat  was  had, 
and  after  sore  marching  and  fighting  Lorencez  regained  Orizava,  for- 
tifying in  turn,  and  waiting  as  best  he  could  for  succor  from  France. 

It  came  speedily  in  the  shape  of  General  Forey  and  twelve 
thousand  men.  Pueblo  was  besieged  and  captured,  and  without 
further  resistance  and  without  waiting  to  give  Juarez  time  to  repair 
his  losses,  he  hurried  on  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  meeting  everywhere 
an  enthusiastic  reception  from  the  Imperial  Mexicans,  who  believed 
that  the  work  of  subjugation  had  been  finished. 

What  the  French  do  is  generally  done  quickly.  On  the  17th  of 
May,  1863,  Pueblo  surrendered;  on  the  13th  of  May  Juarez  evacu- 
ated the  Capital;  on  the  10th  of  June  the  French  took  possession, 
and  on  the  16th  General  Forey  issued  a  decree  for  the  formation  of 
a  provisional  government.  This  new  government  assembled  with 
great  solemnity  on  the  25th  of  June.  On  the  2d  of  July  they  pub- 
lished an  edict  containing  a  list  of  two  hundred  and  fifteen  persons 
who  were  declared  to  constitute  the  Assembly  of  Notables,  intrusted 
with  the  duty  of  providing  a  plan  for  a  permanent  government. 
On  the  8th  of  July  this  body  was  installed  in  the  presence  of  the 
French  Commander-in-chief,  and  Count  Dubois  de  Saligny,  Minister 
Plenipotentiary  of  France.  A  committee  was  next  appointed  to 
draft  a  form  of  government,  and  on  the  10th  this  committee  sub- 
mitted their  plan  to  the  Assembly,  which  was  unanimously  adopted. 

These  were  its  chief  points': 

1st — The  Mexican  Nation  adopts  for  its  form  of  government  a 
limited,  hereditary  monarchy,  with  a  Catholic  Prince. 

2d — The  Sovereign  will  take  the  title  of  Emperor  of  Mexico. 

3d — The  Imperial  Crown  of  Mexico  is  offered  to  His  Imperial 
Highness,  Prince  Fedinand  Maximilian,  Archduke  of  Austria,  for 
him  and  his  descendants 

4th — In  case  of  any  circumstances  impossible  to  foresee,  tl 
Archduke  Ferdinand  Maximilian  should  not  take  possession  of  tl 
throne  which  is  offered  him,  the  Mexican  Nation  submits  to  th< 
benevolence  of  Napoleon  III.,  Emperor  of  the  French,  to  indicate 
to  her  another  Catholic  Prince. 

And  thus  was  that  Government  created  which  was  so  soon  to  i 
in  misery  and  tears. 

It  is  not  generally  known,  but  it  is  true,  however,  that  as  carl: 
as  October  30,  1861,  Maximilian  was  offered  the  throne  of  Mexu 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  359 

and  declined  it.  While  expressing  himself  extremely  grateful  for 
the  confidence  reposed  in  his  wisdom  and  moderation,  and  for  the 
many  sentiments  of  respect  embraced  in  the  letter  containing  the 
offer,  he  declared  that  he  would  first  have  to  be  assured  of  the  will 
and  co-operation  of  the  country.  And  even  when  the  French  had 
conquered  and  occupied  every  important  place  in  the  Empire, 
and  after  the  Assembly  of  Notables  had  created  a  government  and 
sent  its  deputation  to  notify  Maximilian  of  his  unanimous  election 
as  Emperor,  he  still  lingered  as  if  unwilling  to  tempt  the  unknown. 
Did  some  good  angel  come  to  him  in  dreams  and  whisper  of  the 
future?  Who  knows?  He  at  least  deserved  such  a  heavenly  visit. 

After  he  had  accepted  the  second  offer  of  the  throne,  and  before 
his  departure  from  Miramar,  Maximilian  sent  a  special  messenger 
to  Mexico,  bearing  a  communication  to  Juarez,  which  was  written 
by  Baron  de  Pont,  his  counselor.  It  was  dated  Bellevue  Hotel, 
Brussels,  March  16,  1864,  and  contained  propositions  to  the 
effect  that  Maximilian  did  not  wish  to  force  himself  upon  the  Mexi- 
cans by  the  aid  of  foreign  troopS,  against  the  will  of  the  people; 
that  he  did  not  wish  to  change  or  make  for  them  any  political  sys- 
tem of  government  contrary  to  an  express  wish  of  a  majority  of 
the  Mexicans;  that  he  wished  the  bearer  of  the  letter  to  say  to 
President  Juarez,  that  he,  Maximilian,  was  willing  to  meet  Presi- 
dent Juarez  in  any  convenient  place,  on  Mexican  soil,  which  Pres- 
ident Juarez  might  designate,  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the 
affairs  of  Mexico,  in  an  amicable  manner;  and  that  doubtless  an 
understanding  and  conclusion  might  be  reached  wholly  in  unison 
with  the  will  of  the  people. 

The  gentleman  bearing  the  letter  went  to  Mexico,  saw  Pres- 
ident Juarez,  stated  his  mission,  and  gave  him  a  copy  of  the  com- 
munication. The  President  cooly  answered  that  he  could  not  con- 
sent to  any  meeting  with  Maximilian. 

This  was  in  March.  In  April,  1864,  the  newly  chosen  Emperor 
sailed  away  from  Trieste,  from  his  beautiful  home  by  the  blue 
Medeterranean;  from  the  Old  World  with  its  luxury  and  its  art;  from 
a  thousand  memories  fresh  with  the  dawn  of  youth  and  sparkling 
in  the  sunshine  of  happiness;  from  the  broad  aegis  of  an  Empire 
whose  monarch  he  might  have  been;  from  a  proud  fleet  created  and 
made  formidable  by  his  genius;  from  the  tombs  of  his  ancestors 
and  the  graves  of  his  kindred— and  for  what  ?  To  attempt  an  im- 
possible thing.  Instead  of  a  civilized  and  Christian  monarch,  the 
Mexicans  needed  missionaries.  Instead  of  tfie  graces  and  virtues  of 
European  culture  and  education,  the  barbarians  required  grap-shot 
and  canister.  Instead  of  plans  for  all  kinds  of  improvements,  for 
works  of  usefulness  and  adornment,  the  destroying  vandals  could 
be  happy  only  with  a  despotism  and  the  simple  austerity  of  martial 
law.  Poor  Austrian  and  poor  Emperor !  Attempting  to  rule 


360  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO -MEXICO; 

through  justice  and  compassion,  he  seemed  never  to  have  known 
that  for  the  work  of  regeneration  he  needed  one  hundred  thousand 
foreign  soldiers. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which  Maximilian 
and  his  beautiful  Empress  where  greeted  when  they  landed  at  Vera 
Cruz.  Indeed,  from  the  sea  to  the  great  lakes  about  the  Capital,  it 
was  an  ovation  such  as  one  seldom  sees  in  a  country  where  all  is 
treachery,  stolidity,  brutality  and  ignorance.  The  fires  of  a  joyous 
welcome  that  were  lit  at  Vera  Cruz  blazed  all  along  the  route,  and 
flared  up  like  a  conflagration  in  Paso  del  Macho,  in  Cordova,  in 
Pueblo,  smoking  yet  from  the  terrible  bombardment,  and  on  the 
lone  mountain  Rio  Frio — where,  looking  away  to  the  north,  they 
for  the  first  time  might  have  almost  seen  the  great  cathedral  spire 
of  Mexico  looming  up  through  the  mist— that  hoary  and  august  pile, 
as  old  as  Cortez,  and  bearing  high  up,  under  the  image  of  a  saint, 
Montezuma's  sacrificial  stone,  having  yet  upon  it  the  blood  of  the 
foreigner. 

The  omen  was  unheeded. 

When  Shelby  arrived  in  Mexico,  Maximilian  had  been  reigning 
over  a  year.  The  French  held  all  the  country  that  was  worth  hold- 
ing— certainly  all  the  cities,  the  large  towns,  the  mining  districts, 
and  the  seaports.  Besides  the  French  troops,  the  Emperor  had  in 
his  service  a  corps  of  Imperial  Mexicans,  and  a  small  body  of  Aus- 
trian and  Belgian  auxiliaries.  The  first  was  capable  of  infinite 
augmentation,  but  they  were  uncertain,  unreliable,  and  apt  at  any 
time  to  desert  in  a  body  to  the  Liberals.  The  last  were  slowly 
wasting  away — being  worn  out  as  it  were  by  sickness  and  severe 
attrition.  The  treasury  was  empty.  Brigandage,  a  plant  of  indig- 
enous growth,  still  flourished  and  grew  luxuriantly  outside  every 
garrisoned  town  or  city.  The  French  could  not  root  it  up,  although 
the  French  shot  everything  upon  which  they  got  their  hands  that 
looked  a  little  wild  or  startled.  No  matter  for  a  trial.  The  order 
of  an  officer  was  as  good  as  a  decree  from  Bazaine.  Thousands  were 
thus  offered  up  as  a  propitiation  to  the  god  of  good  order — many  of 
them  innocent — all  of  them  shot  without  a  hearing. 

This  displeased  the  Emperor  greatly.  His  heart  was  really  with 
his  Mexicans,  and  he  sorrowed  over  a  f usilade  for  a  whole  week 
through.  At  times  he  remonstrated  vigorously  with  Bazaine,  but 
the  imperturbable  Marshal  listened  patiently  and  signed  the  death 
warrants  as  fast  as  they  were  presented.  These  futile  discussions 
at  last  ended  in  an  estrangement,  and  while  Maximilian  was  Em- 
peror in  name,  Bazaine  was  Emperor  in  reality. 

With  a  soldier's  quickness  and  power  of  analysis,  Shelby  saw 
and  understood  all  these  things  and  treasured  them  up  against  the 
day  of  interview.  This  was  speedily  arranged  by  Commodore 
Maury  and  General  Magruder.  Maximilian  met  him  without  cere- 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  361 

mony,  and  with  great  sincerity  and  frankness.  Marshal  Bazaine 
was  present.  Count  de  Noue,  the  son-in-law  of  General  Harney,  and 
chief  of  Bazaine's  civil  staff,  was  the  interpreter.  The  Emperor, 
while  understanding  English,  yet  preferred  to  converse  in  French 
and  to  hold  all  his  intercourse  with  the  Americans  in  that  language. 

Shelby  laid  his  plans  before  him  at  once.  These  were  to  take 
immediate  service  in  his  Empire,  recruit  a  corps  of  forty  thousand 
Americans,  supercede  as  far  as  possible  the  native  troops  in  his* 
army,  consolidate  the  Government  against  the  time  of  the  withdrawal 
of  the  French  soldiers,  encourage  emigration  in  every  possible  man- 
ner, develop  the  resources  of  the  country,  and  hold  it,  until  the 
people  became  reconciled  to  the  change,  with  a  strong  and  well- 
organized  army. 

Every  proposition  was  faithfully  rendered  to  the  Emperor,  who 
merely  bowed  and  inclined  his  head  forward  as  if  he  would  hear 
more. 

Shelby  continued,  in  his  straightforward,  soldierly  manner: 

"  It  is  only  a  question  of  time,  Your  Majesty,  before  the  French 
soldiers  are  withdrawn. " 

Marshal  Bazaine  smiled  a  little  sarcastically,  it  seemed,  but  said 
nothing. 

"  Why  do  you  think  so? "  inquired  the  Emperor. 

"  Because  the  war  between  the  States  is  at  an  end,  and  Mr.  Sew- 
ard  will  insist  on  the  rigorous  enforcement  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine. 
France  does  not  desire  a  conflict  with  the  United  States.  It  would 
neither  be  popular  nor  profitable.  I  left  behind  me  a  million  men 
in  arms,  not  one  of  whom  has  yet  been  discharged  from  the  service. 
The  nation  is  sore  over  this  occupation,  and  the  presence  of  the 
French  is  a  perpetual  menance.  I  hope  your  Majesty  will  pardon 
me,  but  in  order  to  speak  the  truth  it  is  necessary  to  speak 
plainly." 

"Go  on,"  said  the  Emperor,  greatly  interested. 

"  The  matter  whereof  I  have  spoken  to  you  is  perfectly  feasible. 
I  have  authority  for  saying  that  the  American  Government  would  not 
be  ad  verse  to  the  enlistment  of  as  many  soldiers  in  your  army  as 
might  wish  to  take  service,  and  the  number  need  only  be  limited  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  Empire.  Thrown  upon  your  own  resources, 
you  would  find  no  difliculty,  I  think,  in  establishing  the  most  friendly 
relations  with  the  United  States.  In  order  to  put  yourself  in  a 
position  to  do  this,  and  in  order  to  sustain  yourself  sufficiently  long 
to  consolidate  your  occupation  of  Mexico  and  make  your  Govern- 
ment a  strong  one,  I  think  it  absolutely  necessary  that  you  should 
have  a  corps  of  foreign  soldiers  devoted  to  you  personally,  and  relia- 
ble in  any  emergency." 

On  being  appealed  to,  Commodore  Maury  and  General  Magruder 
sustained  his  view  of  the  case,  and  Shelby  continued; 


362  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

"  I  have  under  my  command  at  present  about  1,000  tried  and 
experienced  troops.  All  of  them  have  seen  much  severe  and  actual 
service,  and  all  of  them  are  anxious  to  enlist  in  support  of  the 
Empire.  With  your  permission,  and  authorized  in  your  name  to 
increase  my  forces,  and  in  a  few  months  all  the  promises  given  here 
to  day  could  be  made  good." 

The  Emperor  still  remained  silent.  It  appeared  as  if  Shelby  was 
an  eoigma  he  was  trying  to  make  out — one  which  interested  him  at 
the  same  time  that  it  puzzled  him.  In  the  habit  of  having  full  and 
free  conversations  with  Commodore  Maury,  and  of  reposing  in  him 
the  most  unlimited  confidence,  he  would  look  first  at  Shelby  and 
then  at  Maury,  as  if  appealing  from  the  blunt  frankness  of  the  one 
to  the  polished  sincerity  and  known  sound  judgment  of  the  other. 
Perhaps  Marshal  Bazaine  knew  better  than  any  man  at  the  inter  view 
how  keenly  incisive  had  been  Shelby's  analysis  of  the  situation ;  and 
how  absolutely  certain  were  events,  neither  he  nor  his  master  could 
control,  to  push  the  last  of  his  soldiers  beyond  the  ocean.  At  inter- 
vals the  calm,  immobile  face  would  flush  a  little,  and  once  or  twice 
he  folded  and  unfolded  a  printed  despatch  he  held  in  his  hands. 
Beyond  these  evidences  of  attention,  it  was  not  known  that  Bazaine 
was  even  listening.  His  own  judgment  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the 
employment  of  the  Americans,  and  had  the  bargain  been  left  to  him, 
the  bargain  would  have  been  made  before  the  end  of  the  interview. 
He  was  a  soldier,  and  reasoned  from  a  soldier's  standpoint.  Maxi- 
milian was  a  Christian  ruler,  and  shrank  within  himself,  all  his 
nature  in  revolt,  when  the  talk  was  of  bloodshed  and  provinces  held 
by  the  bayonet.  His  mind  was  convinced  from  the  first  that  Shelby's 
policy  was  the  best  for  him,  and  he  leant  to  it  as  to  something  he 
desired  near  him  for  support  when  the  crisis  came.  He  did  not 
embrace  it,  however,  and  make  it  part  and  parcel  of  his  heart  and 
his  affections.  Therein  began  the  descent  that  ended  only  at  Quere- 
taro.  After  the  French  left  he  had  scarcely  so  much  as  a  bundle  of 
reeds  to  rest  upon.  Those  of  his  Austrians  and  Belgians  spared  by 
pestilence  and  war  died  about  him  in  dogged  and  desperate  despair. 
They  did  not  care  to  die,  only  they  knew  they  could  do  no  good,  and 
as  Lieutenant  Karnak  said,  when  speaking  for  all  the  little  handful, 
they  saw  the  end  plainer,  perhaps,  than  any  removed  yet  a  stone's 
throw  further  from  the  finale. 

"  This  last  charge  will  soon  be  over,  boys,  and  there  won't  be 
many  of  us  killed,  because  there  are  so  few  of  us  to  kill;  but  (and 
he  whispered  it  while  the  bugles  were  blowing)  although  we  die 
for  our  Emperor  to-day,  he  will  die  for  us  to-morrow." 

When  the  rally  sounded  Karnak's  squadron  of  seventy  came 
back  with  six.  Karnak  was  not  among  them. 

The  Emperor  did  not  reply  directly  to  Shelby.  He  rose  up,  beck- 
oned De  Noue  to  one  side,  spoke  to  him  quietly  and  earnestly  for  some 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  363 

brief  moments,  dismissed  liis  visitors  pleasantly  and  withdrew.  His 
mind,  however,  it  appears,  had  been  made  up  from  the  first.  He  was 
not  willing  to  trust  the  Americans  in  an  organization  so  large  and  so 
complete — an  organization  composed  of  forty  thousand  skilled  and 
veteran  soldiers,  commanded  by  officers  of  known  valor,  and  anxious 
for  any  enterprise,  no  matter  how  daring  or  desperate.  Besides  he 
had  other  plans  in  view. 

As  De  Noue  passed  out  he  spoke  to  Shelby: 

"It's  no  use.  The  Emperor  is  firm  on  the  point  of  diplomacy. 
He  means  to  try  negotiation  and  correspondence  with  the  United 
States.  He  thinks  Mr.  Seward  is  favorably  disposed  toward  him, 
and  that  the  spirit  of  the  dominant  party  will  not  be  adverse  to  his 
experiment  with  the  Mexicans.  His  sole  desire  is  to  give  them  a 
good  government,  lenient  yet  restraining  laws,  and  to  develop  the 
country  and  educate  the  people.  He  believes  that  he  can  do  this 
with  native  troops,  and  that  it  will  be  greatly  to  the  interest  of  the 
American  Government  to  recognize  him,  and  to  cultivate  with  him 
the  most  friendly  relations.  At  any  rate,"  and  De  Noue  lowered 
his  voice,  "  at  any  rate,  His  Majesty  is  an  enthusiast,  and  you  know 
that  an  enthusiast  reasons  ever  from  the  heart  instead  of  the  head. 
He  will  not  succeed.  He  does  not  understand  the  people  over  whom 
he  rules,  nor  any  of  the  dangers  which  beset  him.  You  know  he 
once  governed  in  Lombardy  and  Yenitia,  when  they  were  Austrian 
provinces,  and  he  made  so  many  friends  there  for  a  young  prince 
that  he  might  well  suppose  he  had  some  divine  right  to  reign  suc- 
cessfully. There  is  no  similarity,  however,  between  the  two  posi- 
tions. A  powerful  army  was  behind  him  when  he  was  in  Italy, 
and  a  singularly  ferocious  campaign,  wherein  the  old  Austrian, 
Marshal  Radetsky,  manifested  all  the  fire  and  vigorof  his  youth,  had 
crushed  Italian  resistance  to  the  earth.  It  was  the  season  for  the 
physician  and  the  peace-maker,  and  the  Emperor  came  in  with  his 
salves  and  his  healing  ointments.  Singularly  fitted  for  the  part  he 
had  been  called  upon  to  perform,  he  won  the  hearts  of  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact,  and  left  at  last  universally  loved  and 
regretted.  It  is  no  use  I  say  again,  General,  the  Emperor  will  not 
give  you  employment." 

"  I  knew  it,"  replied  Shelby. 

"How?"  and  DeNoue  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  From  his  countenance.  Not  once  could  I  bring  the  blood  to 
his  calm  benignant  face.  He  has  faith,  but  no  enthusiasm,  and 
enthusiasm  such  as  he  needs  would  be  but  another  name  for  audacity. 
I  say  to  you  in  all  frankness,  Count  De  Koue  .Maximilian  will 
fail  in  his  diplomacy." 

"Your  reasons,  General." 

"  Because  he  will  not  have  time  to  work  the  problem  out.  I 
have  traveled  slowly  and  in  my  own  fashion  from  Predras  Negras  to 


364  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

the  City  of  Mexico — traveled  by  easy  stages  when  the  need  was,  and 
by  forced  marches  when  the  need  was,  fighting  a  little  at  times  and 
resting  a  little  at  ease  at  times,  but  always  on  guard,  and  watching 
upon  the  right  hand,  and  upon  the  left.  Save  the  ground  held  by 
your  cantonments  and  your  garrisons,  and  the  ground  your  cannon 
can  hold  in  range,  and  your  cavalry  can  patrol  and  scour,  you  have 
not  one  foot  in  sympathy  with  you,  with  the  Emperor,  with  the 
Empire,  with  anything  that  promises  to  be  respectable  in  govern- 
ment or  reliable  in  administration.  Juraez  lives  as  surely  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people  as  the  snow  is  eternal  on  the  brow  of  Popocat- 
apetl,  and  ere  an  answer  could  come  from  Seward  to  the  Emperor's 
Minister  of  State,  the  Emperor  will  have  no  Minister  of  State. 
That's  all,  Count.  I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  kind  offices 
to-day,  and  would  have  given  a  good  account  of  my  Americans  if 
king-craft  had  seen  the  wisdom  of  their  employment.  I  must  go 
back  to  my  men  now,  They  expect  me  early." 

Thus  terminated  an  interview  that  had  more  of  destiny  in  it, 
perhaps,  than  the  seeming  indifference  and  disinclination  to  talk  on 
the  part  of  the  Emperor  might  indicate.  The  future  settled  the 
question  of  policy  that  alone  kept  the  ruler  and  his  subject  apart. 
When  the  struggle  came  that  Shelby  had  so  plainly  and  bluntly 
depicted,  Maximilian  was  in  the  midst  of  eight  million  of  savages, 
without  an  army,  with  scarcely  a  guard,  with  none  upon  whom 
he  could  rely,  abandoned,  deserted  and  betrayed.  Was  it  any 
wonder,  therefore,  that  the  end  of  the  Empire  should  be  the  dead 
wall  at  Queretaro  ? 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  annunciation  of  Maximilian's  emphatic  resolution  bore 
heavily  upon  the  Americans  for  some  brief  hours,  and  they 
gathered  about  their  barracks  in  squads  and  groups  to  talk  over  the 
matter  as  philosophers  and  look  the  future  full  in  the  face  like  men. 
A  soldier  is  most  generally  a  fatalist.  Some  few  of  them  have 
presentiments,  and  some  that  abounding  reverence  for  the  Script- 
ures that  makes  them  Christians  even  in  the  vengeful  passions  of 
pursuit;  but  to  the  masses  rarely  ever  comes  any  thought  of  the 
invisible,  any  care  for  what  lies  out  of  sight,  and  out  of  reach, 
and  under  the  shadows  of  the  sunset  world.  Sufficient  unto  the  day 
is  indeed  for  them  the  evil  thereof. 

These  Americans,  however,  of  Shelby's  had  moralized  much 
about  the  future,  and  had  dreamed,  it  may  be,  many  useless  and 
unprofitable  dreams  about  the  conquests  that  were  to  give  to  tlurr  a 
home,  a  flag,  a  country — a  portion  of  a  new  land  filled  full  of  the 
richness  of  the  mines  and  the  tropics.  And  many  times  in  dream- 
ing these  dreams  they  went  hungry  for  bread.  Silver  had  become 
almost  invisible  of  late,  and  if  all  the  purses  of  the  men  had  been 
emptied  into  the  lap  of  a  woman,  the  dollars  that  might  have  been 
gathered  up  would  scarcely  have  paid  the  price  of  a  bridal  veil. 
Still  they  were  cheerful.  When  every  other  resource  failed,  they 
knew  they  were  in  aland  of  robbers,  and  that  for  horses  and  arms 
none  surpassed  them  in  all  the  Empire.  Hence  when  Shelby  called 
them  around  him  after  his  interview  with  the  Emperor,  it  was  with 
something  of  apathy,  or  at  least  of  indifference  that  they  listened  to 
his  report. 

"We  are  not  wanted,  "he  commenced,  "and  perhaps  it  is  best  so. 
Those  who  have  fought  as  you  have  for  a  principle  have  nothing 
more  to  gain  in  a  war  for  occupation  or  conquest.  Our  neccessities 
aregrievious,  it  is  true,  and  there  is  no  work  for  us  in  the  line  of  our 
profession;  but  to-day,  as  upon  the  first  day  I  took  command  of  you, 
I  stand  ready  to  abide  your  decision  in  the  matter  of  our  destiny. 
If  you  say  we  shall  march  to  the  headquarters  of  Juarez,  then  we 
shall  march,  although  all  of  you  will  bear  me  witness  that  at  Pie- 
dras  Negras  I  counseled  immediate  and  earnest  service  in  his  gov- 
ernment. You  refused  then  as  you  will  refuse  to-day.  Why? 
Because  you  are  all  Imperialists  at  heart  just  as  I  am,  and  because, 
poor  simpletons,  you  imagined  that  France  and  the  United  States 
might  come  to  blows  at  last.  Bah!  the  day  for  that  has  gone  by. 
Louis  Napoleon  slept  too  long.  The  only  foreigner  who  ever  under- 
stood our  war,  who  ever  looked  across  the  ocean  with  anything  of 

365 


366  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

a  prophet's  vision,  who  ever  said  yes  when  he  meant  yes  and  no 
when  he  said  no,  was  Palmerston,  and  he  was  an  Abolitionist 
per  se. " 

Here  Shelby  checked  himself  suddenly.  The  old  ironical  fit 
had  taken  possession  of  him,  one  which  always  came  on  him  on 
the  eve  of  the  battle  or  the  morning  of  the  conflict. 

"  I  find  myself  quoting  Latin  when  I  do  not  even  understand 
Spanish.  How  many  of  you  know  enough  Spanish  to  get  you  a 
Spanish  wife  with  an  acre  of  bread  fruit,  twenty -five  tobacco  plants 
and  a  handful  of  corn?  We  can  not  starve,  boys." 

The  men  laughed  long  and  loud.  They  had  been  gloomy  at 
first  and  a  little  resolved,  some  of  them,  to  take  to  the  highway.  As 
poor  as  the  poorest  there,  Shelby  came  among  them  with  his  badi- 
nage and  his  laughter,  and  in  an  hour  the  forces  of  the  expedition 
were  as  a  happy  family  again.  Plans  for  the  future  were  presented, 
discussed  and  abandoned.  Perhaps  there  would  be  no  longer  any 
further  unity  of  action.  A  great  cohesive  power  had  been  sud- 
denly taken  away,  and  there  was  danger  of  the  band  breaking  up — 
a  band  that  had  been  winnowed  in  the  fierce  winds  of  battle,  and 
made  to  act  as  with  one  impulse,  by  the  iron  influences  of  discipline 
and  disaster.  Many  came  solely  for  the  service  they  expected  to 
take.  If  they  had  tot  dig  in  the  ground,  or  suffer  chances  in  the 
raising  of  cotton  or  corn,  they  preferred  to  do  it  where  it  was  not 
necessary  to  plow  by  day  and  stand  guard  over  the  mules  and  oxen 
at  night — to  get  a  bed  at  the  end  of  the  furrows  instead  of  a  fusilade. 

To  do  anything,  however,  or  to  move  in  any  direction,  it  was 
necessary  first  to  have  a  little  money.  Governor  Reynolds,  with 
the  same  zeal  and  devotion  that  had  always  characterized  his  efforts 
in  behalf  of  Missourians  during  the  war  in  his  own  country,  sought 
now  to  obtain  a  little  favor  for  the  men  at  the  hands  of  Marshal 
Bazaine.  In  conjunction  with  General  Magruder,  he  sought  an 
interview  with  the  Marshal  and  represented  to  him  that  at  Parras 
the  Expedition  had  been  turned  from  its  original  course,  and  forced 
to  march  into  the  interior  by  his  own  positive  orders.  This  move- 
ment necessarily  cut  it  off  from  all  communication  with  friends 
at  home,  and  rendered  it  impossible  for  those  who  composed  it  to 
receive  either  letters  or  supplies.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  and  had 
the  march  to  the  Pacific  been  permitted,  in  conformity  with  the 
original  intention,  access  to  California  was  easy,  and  the  trips  of  the 
incoming  and  outgoing  steamers  to  and  from  Guaymasand  Mazatlan 
regular  and  reliable.  In  their  view,  therefore,  the  Marshal,  they 
thought,  should  at  least  take  the  matter  under  consideration,  and 
act  in  the  premises  as  one  soldier  should  in  dealing  with  another 

Bazaine  was  generous  to  extravagance,  as  most  French  officers 
are  who  hold  power  in  their  hands,  and  whose  whole  lives  have 
been  spent  in  barrack  and  field.  He  took  from  his  military  chest 


a 

; 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OP  THE  WAR.  367 

fifty  dollars  apiece  for  the  men  and  officers,  share  and  share  alike, 
and  this  amount  came  to  each  as  a  rain  to  a  field  that  the  sun  is 
parching.  It  put  into  their  hands  in  a  moment,  as  it  were,  the 
choosing  of  their  own  destiny.  Thereafter  every  man  went  the 
way  that  suited  him  best. 

Commodore  Maury  had,  several  months  before,  been  made 
Imperial  Commissioner  of  Emigration,  and  was  at  work  upon  his 
duties  with  the  ambition  of  a  sailor  and  the  intelligence  of  a  savant. 
All  NYho  came  in  contact  with  him  loved  the  simple,  frugal,  gentle 
Christian  of  the  spiritual  church  and  the  church  militant.  Some 
of  his  family  were  with  him.  His  son  was  there,  Col.  Richard 
H.  Maury,  and  his  son's  wife,  and  other  Americans  who  had  fami- 
lies, and  who  were  at  work  in  his  office.  These  formed  a  little 
society  of  themselves — a  light,  as  it  were,  in  the  night  of  the 
exiles.  The  Commodore  gave  the  entire  energies  of  his  massive 
mind  to  the  work  before  him.  He  knew  well  the  exhausted  and 
discontented  condition  of  the  South,  and  he  believed  that  a  large 
emigration  could  be  secured  with  but  little  exertion.  He  dispatched 
agents  to  the  United  States  charged  with  the  duty  of  representing 
properly  the  advantages  and  resources  of  the  country,  and  of  lay- 
ing before  the  people  the  exact  condition  of  Mexican  affairs.  This 
some  of  them  did  in  a  most  satisfactory  manner,  and  as  a  result  a 
great  excitement  arose.  By  one  mail  from  New  York  he  received 
over  seven  hundred  letters  asking  for  circulars  descriptive  of  the 
country,  and  of  the  way  to  reach  it. 

Maury's  renown  had  filled  the  old  world  as  well  as  the  new.  His 
"Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea"  saw  itself  adorned  in  the  graces  of 
eleven  separate  languages.  It  also  brought  him  fame,  medals, 
crosses,  broad  ribbons  of  appreciation  and  purses  well  filled  with 
gold,  these  last  being  the  offerings  sea  captains  and  shippers  made 
to  the  genius  who  laid  his  hand  upon  the  ocean  as  upon  a  slate, 
and  traced  thereon  the  routes  that  the  winds  favored,  and  the 
routes  that  had  in  ambush  upon  them  shipwreck  and  disaster.  His 
calm,  benevolent  face,  set  in  a  framework  of  iron  gray  hair,  was 
one  which  the  women  and  the  children  loved — a  picture  that  had 
over  it  the  aureole  of  a  saint.  No  gentler  man  ever  broke  bread  at 
the  table  of  a  court.  Much  of  the  crispness  and  the  sparkle  of  the 
salt  water  ran  through  his  conversation.  He  was  epigrammatic  to 
a  degree  only  attained  on  board  a  man-of-war.  His  mind  had  the 
logic  of  instinct.  He  divined  while  other  men  delved.  Always  a 
student,  the  brilliance  of  his  imagination  required  at  his  hands  the 
most  constant  curbing.  Who  that  has  read  that  book  of  all  sea 
books  has  forgotten  his  reference  to  the  gulf  stream  when  he  says: 
"There  is  a  river  in  the  midst  of  the  ocean."  Destiny  gave  him  a 
long  life  that  he  might  combat  against  the  treachery  of  the  sea. 
When  he  died  he  was  a  conqueror. 


368  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

General  Magmder  was  the  Imperial  Commissioner  of  the  Land 
Office,  and  he,  too,  had  gathered  his  family  around  him,  and  taken 
into  his  service  other  Americans  weary  of  degradation  at  home,  and 
exiles  in  a  land  that  might  to-day  have  been  Maximilian's.  Magru- 
der  had  once  before  entered  Mexico  as  a  conqueror.  All  its  ways 
and  its  moods  were  known  to  him,  and  often  in  the  sunshiny 
weather,  when  the  blue  air  blessed  the  glad  earth  with  its  blessings 
of  freshness  and  fragrance,  those  who  were  dreaming  of  the  past 
followed  him  hour  after  hour  about  Chepultepec,  and  over  the 
broken  way  of  Cerro  Gordo,  and  in  amid  the  ruins  of  Molino  de- 
Rey,  and  there  where  the  Belen  gate  stood  yet  in  ghastly  and  scat- 
tered fragments,  and  yonder  in  its  pedregraland  under  the  shadow 
of  Huasco,  about  the  crest  of  Churubusco,  green  now  in  the  gar- 
ments of  summer,  and  asleep  so  peacefully  in  the  arms  of  the  sun- 
set that  the  younger  loiterers  think  the  old  man  strange  when  he 
tells  of  the  storm  and  the  massacre,  the  wounded  that  were  bayo- 
neted and  the  dead  that  were  butchered  after  all  life  had  fled.  There 
are  no  specters  there,  and  no  graves  among  the  ruins,  and  no 
splotches  as  of  blood  upon  the  velvet  leaves.  Yes,  surely  the  old  rn#n 
wanders,  for  but  yesterday,  it  seems  to  them,  the  battle  was  fought. 

Soldiers  never  repine.  Destiny  with  them  has  a  name  which  is 
called  April.  One  day  it  is  gracious  in  sunshiny  things,  and  the 
next  ruinous  with  rainstorms  and  cloudy  weather.  As  it  comes 
they  take  it,  laughing  always  and  at  peace  with  the  world  and  the 
things  of  the  world.  Some  faces  lengthened,  it  may  be,  and  some 
hopes  fell  in  the  hey-day  and  the  morning  of  their  life,  when  Shelby 
told  briefly  the  story  of  the  interview,  but  beyond  the  expressions  of 
a  certain  vague  regret,  no  man  went.  Another  separation  was  near 
at  hand, one  which,  forthemost  of  them  there,  would  be  the  last  and 
irrevocable. 

In  the  vicinity  of  Cordova  there  was  a  large  extent  of  unculti- 
vated land  which  had  once  belonged  to  the  church,  and  which  had 
been  rudely  and  unscrupulously  confiscated  by  Juarez.  When 
Maximilian  came  into  possession  of  the  Government,  it  was  confi- 
dently believed  that  he  would  restore  to  the  church  its  revenues  and 
territory,  and  more  especially  that  portion  of  the  ecclesiastical 
domain  so  eminently  valuable  as  that  about  Cordova.  It  embraced, 
probably,  some  half  a  million  acres  of  cotton  and  sugar  and  coffee 
land,  well  watered,  and  lying  directly  upon  the  great  national  road 
from  Vera  Cruz  to  the  Capital,  and  upon  the  Mexican  Imperial  Rail- 
way, then  finished,  to  Paso  del  Macho,  twenty-five  miles  southward 
from  Cordova. 

Maximilian,  however,  confirmed  the  decree  of  confiscation  issued 
by  Juarez,  and  set  all  this  land  apart  for  the  benefit  of  Ameri( 
emigrants  who,  as  actual  settlers,   desired  to  locate  upon  it  an< 
begin  at  once    the  work    of   cultivation.    Men    having  familit 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAP  OF  THE  WAR.  359 

'received  six  hundred  and  forty  acres  of  land,  at  the  stipulated 
price  of  one  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  acre,  and  men  without 
families  three  hundred  and  twenty  acres  at  the  same  price.  Com- 
missioner Maury,  remembering  his  schooling  and  the  experience  of 
his  Washington  days  when  he  ruled  the  National  Observatory  so 
much  to  the  glory  of  his  country  and  the  honor  of  science:  adopted 
the  American  plan  of  division,  and  thereby  secured  the  establish- 
ment of  a  system  that  was  as  familiar  to  the  new  comers  as  it  was 
satisfactory. 

Many  settlers  arrived  and  went  at  once  to  the  colony,  which 
in  honor  of  the  most  perfect  woman  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was 
named  Carlota.  A  village  sprung  up  almost  in  a  night  The  men 
were  happy  and  sung  at  their  toil.  Birds  of  beautiful  plumage  flew 
;nearand  nearer  to  them  while  they  plowed,  and  in  the  heat  of  the 
afternoons  they  reposed  for  comfort  under  orange  trees  that  were 
white  with  bloom  and  golden  with  fruit  at  the  same  time.  So  ira- 
;patient  is  life  in  that  tropical  land  that  there  is  no  death.  .  Before 
it  is  night  over  the  eyes  the  sun  again  has  peopled  all  the  groves 
with  melody  and  perfume.  The  village  had  begun  to  put  on  the 
garments  of  a  town.  Emigration  increased.  The  fame  of  Carlota 
went  abroad,  and  what  had  before  appeared  only  a  thin  stream  of 
'settlers,  now  took  the  form  of  an  inundation. 

Shelby  told  his  men  all  he  knew  about  Carlota,  and  advised  them 
•briefly  to  pre-empt  the  legal  quantity  of  land  and  give  up  at  once  any 
further  idea  of  service  in  the  ranks  of  Maximilian's  army.  Many 
'accepted  his  advice-and  entered  at  once  and  heartily  upon  the  duties 
of  this  new  life.  Others,  unwilling  to  remain  in  the  Empire  as 
colonists,  received  permission  from  Bazaiue  to  march  to  the  Pacific. 
On  the  long  and  dangerous  road  some  died,  some  were  kilted,  and 
eome  took  shipping  for  California,  for  China,  for  Japan,  and  for 
the  Sandwich  Islands.  A  few,  hearing  wonderful  stories  of  the 
treasures  Kidd,  the  pirate,  had  buried  on  an  island  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  got  aboard  a  schooner  at  Mazatlan  and  sailed  away  in  quest 
of  gold.  Those  that  survived  the  adventure  returned  starving,  and 
for  bread  joined  the  Imperial  army  in  Sonora.  Perhaps  fifty  took 
service  in  the  Third  Zouaves.  A  singular  incident  determined  the 
regiment  of  their  choice.  After  authority  had  been  received  from 
the  Marshal  for  the  enlistment,  a  dozen  or  more  strolled  into  the 
Almeda  where,  of  evenings  the  bands  played  and  the  soldiers  of  all 
arms  promenaded.  In  each  corps  a  certain  standard  of  height  had  to 
be  complied  with.  The  grenadiers  had  need  to  be  six  feet,  the 
artillery  men  six  feet  and  an  inch,  the  cuirassiers  six  feet,  and  the 
hussars  six  feet.  Not  all  being  of  the  same  stature,  and,  not  wishing 
to  be  separated,  the  choice  of  the  Americans  was  reduced  to  the 
infantry  regiments.  It  is  further  obligatory  in  the  French  service, 
that  when  soldiers  are  on  duty,  the  private  in  addressing  an  officer 


370  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

shall  remove  his  cap  and  remain  with  it  in  his  hand  until  the  con- 
versation is  finished.  This  was  a  species  of  discipline  the  Americans 
had  never  learned,  and  they  stood  watching  the  various  groups  as 
they  passed  to  and  fro,  complying  scrupulously  with  the  regulations 
of  the  service.  At  last  a  squad  of  Zouaves  sauntered  nonchalantly 
by — great  bearded,  medaled  fellows,  bronzed  by  African  suns  and 
swarthy  of  brow  and  cheek  as  any  Arab  of  the  desert.  The  pictur- 
esque uniform  attracted  all  eyes.  It  was  war  dramatized — it  was 
campaigning  expressed  in  poetry.  An  officer  called  to  one  of  the 
Zouaves,  and  he  went  forward  saluting.  This  was  done  by  bringing 
the  right  hand  up  against  the  turban,  with  the  palm  extended  in 
token  of  respect,  but  the  turban  itself  was  not  removed.  The  sub- 
ordinate did  not  uncover  to  his  superior,  and  therefore  would  the 
Americans  put  on  turbans,  and  make  Zouaves  of  themselves.  Cap- 
tain Pierron,  more  of  an  American  than  a  Frenchman,  supervised 
the  metamorphosis,  and  when  the  toilette  was  complete  even  Shelby 
hiinseif,  with  his  accurate  cavalry  eyes,  scarcely  recognized  his  old 
Confederates  of  the  four  years'  war.  At  daylight  the  next  morning 
they  were  marching  away  to  Monterey  at  the  double  quick. 

General  Sterling  Price,  of  Missouri,  with  a  remnant  of  his  body 
guard  and  a  few  personal  friends,  built  himself  a  bamboo  house  in 
the  town  of  Carlota,  and  commenced  in  good  earnest  the  life  of  a 
farmer.  Emigration  was  active  now  both  from  Texas  overland  and 
by  water  from  the  gulf.  General  Slaughter  and  Captain  Price 
established  a  large  saw-mill  at  Orizava.  General  Bee  engaged 
extensively  in  the  raising  of  cotton,  as,  also  did  Cap- 
tains Cundiff  and  Hodge.  General  Hindman,  having  mas- 
tered the  Spanish  language  in  the  short  space  of  three  months,  com- 
menced the  practice  of  law  in  Cordova.  General  Stevens,  the  chief 
engineer  of  General  Lee's  staff,  was  made  chief  engineer  of  the 
Mexican  Imperial  Railway.  Governor  Reynolds  was  appointed 
superintendent  of  two  short-line  railroads  running  out  from  the 
city.  General  Shelby  and  Major  McMurty,  with  headquarters  at 
Cordova,  became  large  freight  contractors,  and  established  a  line 
of  wagons  from  Paso  del  Macho  to  the  Capital.  Ex-Governor 
Allen,  of  Louisiana,  assisted  by  the  Emperor,  founded  the  Mexican 
Times,  a  paper  printed  in  English,  and  devoted  to  the  interests  of 
colonization.  Generals  Lyon,  of  Kentucky,  and  McCausland,  of 
Virginia,  were  appointed  Government  surveyors.  General  Wat- 
kins  was  taken  into  the  diplomatic  service,  and  sent  to  Washington 
on  a  special  mission.  Everywhere  the  Americans  were  honored 
and  promoted,  but  the  army,  to  any  considerable  number  of  them, 
was  as  a  sealed  book.  Where  they  could  have  done  the  most  good 
they  were  forbidden  to  enter. 

To  the  superficial  observer  the  conditon  of  affairs  in  Mexico  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  year  1865  seemed  most  favorable,  indeed,  to 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OP  THE  WAR.  871 

the  ultimate  and  successful  establishment  of  the  Empire.  The 
French  troops  occupied  the  entire  country.  M  Lauglais,  one  of 
Napoleon's  most  favored  ministers,  had  charge  of  the  finances. 
Under  his  experienced  hands  order  was  rapidly  lifting  itself  above 
the  waves  of  chaos.  The  Church  party,  always  jealous  and  suspi- 
cious, still  yielded  a  kind  of  sullen  and  ungracious  allegiance.  Max- 
imilian was  a  devout  Catholic,  and  his  Empress  was  a  devotee  in  all 
spiritual  matters,  but  theirs  was  the  enlightened  Catholicism  of 
Europe,  which  preferred  to  march  with  events  and  to  develop 
instead  of  attempting  to  thwart  and  retard  the  inevitable  advance 
of  destiny.  They  desired  to  throw  off  the  superstition  of  a  century 
of  ignorance  and  degradation  and  let  a  flood  of  light  pour  itself  over 
the  nation.  An  impoverished  people  had  not  only  mortgaged  their 
lands  to  the  clergy  but  their  labor  as  well.  The  revenues  were 
divided  equally  between  the  bishops  and  the  commandantes  of  the 
districts.  Among  the  Indians  the  influence  of  the  monks  was 
supreme.  In  their  hands  at  any  hour  was  peace  or  war.  They 
began  by  asserting  their  right  to  control  the  Emperor,  they  ended 
in  undisguised  and  open  revolt.  Desiring  above  all  things  the  con- 
fidence and  support  of  the  church,  Maximilian  found  himself  sud- 
denly in  an  unfortunate  and  embarrassing  position.  He  was  be- 
tween two  fires  as  it  were,  either  of  which  was  most  formidable, 
and  in  avoiding  the  one  he  only  made  the  accuracy  of  the  other  all 
the  more  deadly.  Without  the  revenue  derived  from  the  seques- 
trated lands  the  church  had  owned  in  enormous  quantities,  he  could 
not  for  a  month  have  paid  the  expenses  of  his  Government.  Had  he 
believed  a  restoration  advisable  he  would  have  found  it  simply  im- 
possible. The  ArchBishop  was  inexorable.  Excommunication 
was  threatened.  For  weeks  and  weeks  there  were  conferences  and 
attempted  compromises.  Bazaine,  never  very  punctual  in  his  relig- 
ous  duties,  and  over  apt  to  cut  knots  that  he  could  not  untie,  had 
always  the  same  ultimatum. 

-"Our  necessities  are  great,"  he  would  say,  "and  we  must  have 
money.  You  do  not  cultivate  your  lands,  and  will  not  sell  them, 
you  are  opposed  to  railroads,  to  emigration,  to  public  improve- 
ments, to  education,  to  a  new  life  of  any  kind,  form  or  fashion, 
and  w,e  must  advance  somehow  and  build  up  as  we  go.  Not  a  foot 
shall  ibe  returned  while  a  French  soldier  can  shoot  a  chassapot." 

The  blunt  logic  of  the  soldier  bruised  while  it  wounded.  Maxi- 
milian, more  conservative,  tried  entreaties  and  expostulations 
but  with  the  same  effect.  A  breach  had  been  opened  up  which  was 
to  increase  in  width  and  destruction  until  the  whole  fabric  fell  in 
ruins.  When  in  his  direst  extremity,  the  Emperor  was  abandoned 
by  the  party  which  of  all  others  had  the  most  to  lose  and  expiate 
by  his  overthrow. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  Empress  Charlotte  was  a  woman  who  had  been  twice 
crowned — once  with  a  crown  of  gold,  earthly  and  perishable,  and 
once  with  a  crown  of  beauty  as  radiant  as  the  morning.  When  she 
arrived  in  Mexico,  this  beauty,  then  in  its  youthful  splendor, 
dazzled  all  beholders.  Her  dark  auburn  hair  was  heavy,  long  and 
silken.  Her  eyes  were  of  that  lustrous  brown  which  were  blue  and 
dreamy  at  times,  and  at  times  full  of  a  clear,  penetrating  light  that 
revealed  a  thought  almost  before  the  thought  was  uttered.  Her 
face  was  oval,  although  the  forehead  a  little  high  and  projecting, 
was  united  at  the  temples  by  those  fine  curves  which  give  so  much 
delicacy  and  expression  to  the  soul  of  women.  Her  mouth  was 
large  and  firm,  and  her  teeth  were  of  the  most  perfect  whiteness. 
About  the  lower  face  there  were  those  lines  of  firmness  which  told 
of  unbending  will  and  great  moral  force  and  decision  of  character. 
Beneath  the  dignity  of  the  Queen,  however,  she  carried  the  ardor 
and  the  joyfulness  of  a  school  girl.  He  nose  was  acquiline,  the 
nostrils  open  and  slightly  projecting,  recording,  as  if  upon  a  page, 
the  emotions  of  her  heart,  and  the  dauntless  courage  which  filled 
her  whole  being.  At  times  her  beautiful  face  wore  an  expression 
impossible  to  describe — an  expression  made  up  of  smiles,  divinations 
questionings,  the  extreme  and  blended  loveliness  of  the  ideal  ai 
the  real — the  calmness  and  gravity  which  became  the  Queen- 
the  softness  and  pensiveness  which  bespoke  the  woman. 

The  gallery  that  contained  the  portrait  of  Maximilian  would 
incomplete  without  that  of  his  devoted  and  heroic  wife.  She  was 
descendant  of  Henry  IV.  of  France,  the  hero  of  Ivry,  a  ruler 
in  goodness  and  greatness  to  Louis  IX,  and  the  victim  of  the  fan* 
ical  assassin  Ravaillac.  Her  father  was  Leopold  I.,  of  Belgiui 
one  of  the  wisest  and  most  enlightened  monarchs  of  Europe. 
Englishman  by  naturalization,  he  married  the  Princess  Chariot! 
Augusta,  daughter  of  George  IV.,  the  2d  of  May,  1816.  Hi 
English  wife  dying  in  childbirth,  in  1817,  Leopold  again  marri( 
in  1832,  uniting  himself  with  Louise  Maria  Theresa  Charlotte  Isi 
bella  de  Orleans,  daughter  of  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  France, 
this  marriage  was  the  Empress  Carlota  born  on  the  7th  of  June 
1840,  and  who  received  at  her  christening  the  names  of  Maria  Chai 
lotte  Amelia  Auguste  Victoire  Clementine  Leopoldino.  Her  fathe 
was  called  the  Nestor  of  Kings,  and  her  mother  the  Hob 
Queen,  such  being  her  charity,  her  purity  and  her  religious  devotior 
The  first  died  in  1865,  while  the  Empress  was  in  Mexico,  and  tl 
last  in  1850.  At  the  time  when  she  most  needed  the  watchfulnt 

312 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  373 

and  advice  of  a  father,  she  was  suddenly  bereft  of  both  his  support 
and  his  protection. 

No  monarch  on  earth  ever  had  a  more  ambitious  and  devoted 
consort.  The  daughter  of  a  king,  and  reared  amid  thrones  and  the 
intense  personal  loyalty  of  European  subjects,  she  believed  an 
empire  might  be  established  in  the  West  greater  than  any  ever 
founded,  after  long  years  of  battle  and  statecraft,  and  she  entered 
upon  the  struggle  with  all  the  impassioned  ardor  of  her  singularly 
hopeful  and  confiding  nature.  Her  unrivaled  beauty  won  the 
enthusiasm  of  cities,  and  her  unostentatious  and  Christian  charity 
erected  for  her  a  throne  in  the  hearts  of  the  suffering  and  unfortnate. 
When  the  yellow  fever  was  at  its  height  in  Vera  Cruz,  and  when  all 
who  were  wealthy  and  well-to-do  had  fled  to  the  higher  and  healthier 
uplands,  she  journeyed  almost  alone  to  the  stricken  seaport,  visited 
the  hospitals,  ministered  unto  the  plague-stricken,  ordered  physi- 
cians from  the  fleet,  encouraged  the  timid,  inspired  the  brave,  paid 
for  masses  for  the  dead,  and  came  away  wan  and  weary,  but  safe 
and  heaven-guarded.  The  fever  touched  not  even  the  hem  of  her 
garments.  Fate,  that  sent  the  east  wind  and  the  epidemic,  may, 
like  the  stricken  sufferers,  have  thought  her  an  angel. 

There  were  pestilence  and  famine  and  insurrection  in  Yucatan. 
The  Indians  there,  naturally  warlike  and  enterprising,  rose  upon 
the  Government  and  cast  off  its  authority.  Tribes  revolted  and 
warred  with  one  another.  The  French,  holding  the  large  towns, 
fortified  and  looked  on  in  sullen  apathy,  sallying  out  at  times  to 
decimate  a  province  or  lay  waste  a  farming  district.  In  a  few  weeks 
the  insurrection  would  be  civil  war.  It  was  decreed  in  council  that 
the  Emperor's  presence  was  needed  in  Yucatan.  His  affairs  at 
home,  however,  were  not  promising,  and  he  tarried  a  little  to 
arrange  them  better  before  leaving.  Of  a  sudden  the  Empress 
besought  leave  to  go  in  his  stead.  It  was  refused.  She  persevered 
day 'after  day,  and  would  not  be  denied.  Inspired  with  more  than 
a  woman's  faith,  and  heroic  in  all  the  grandeur  of  accepted  sacrifice, 
she  made  the  perilous  journey,  taking  with  her  only  an  escort  and  a 
confessor.  Her  arrival  at  Merida  was  like  a  coronation.  All  the 
State  arose  to  do  her  homage.  She  went  among  the  tribes  and 
pacified  them.  She  redressed  their  wrongs,  brought  back  the 
rebellious  leaders  to  a  strict  allegiance,  cast  herself  into  the  midst  of 
pestilence,  opened  the  churches,  recalled  the  proscribed  and 
scattered  priests,  and  came  away  again  an  angel.  Unto  the  end  the 
faith  she  founded  in  her  husband's  empire  remained  unshaken. 
After  Queretaro,  Yucatan  relapsed  into  barbarism. 

The  year  1865  was  spent  by  the  iEmperor  and  Marshal  Bazaine  in 
vigorous  attempts  to  pacify  the  country  and  consolidate  its  power. 
The  Liberal  cause  seemed  hopeless.  Nowhere  did  Juarez  hold  a  sea- 
port, an  outlying  mine,  a  foot  of  grain-growing  territory,  a  ship,  an 


374  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

arsenal,  a  field  large  enough  to  encamp  an  army.  Yet  he  held  on. 
That  sluggish,  tenacious,  ferocious  Indian  nature  of  his  was  aroused 
at  last,  and  while  he  starved  he  schemed.  A  sudden  dash  of  cavalry 
upon  his  winter  quarters  at  El  Paso  drove  him  into  the  United 
States.  He  went  to  San  Antonio  a  fugitive  President  without  a 
dollar  or  a  regiment,  and  waited  patiently  until  the  force  of  the 
blow  had  spent  itself.  As  the  French  retired  he  advanced.  Scarcely 
had  his  adieu  been  forgotten  in  El  Paso  when  his  good  day  greeted 
its  good  people  again.  Everywhere,  also,  were  his  guerrillas  at 
work.  Once  in  a  speech  upon  the  annexation  of  San  Domingo,^ 
Carl  Schurz  exclaimed:  "Beware  of  the  tropics."  And  why? 
Because  the  tropics  breed  guerrillas.  They  do  not  die  in  war  times. 
Malaria  does  not  kill  them.  To  eradicate  them  it  is  first  necessary 
to  find  and  to  capture  them.  They  can  not  be  found  and  fought.  All 
nature  is  in  league  with  them — the  heat,  the  bread-fruit,  the  bananas, 
the  orange-groves,  the  zepotas,  the  mangos,  the  coco-nuts,  the  mon- 
keys. These  last  sentinels  through  imitation,  chatter  volubly  at  thfc 
pursuers  and  cry  out  in  soldier  fashion  and  in  words  of  warning  : 
"  Quien  vivef"  Wherever  the  Spanish  blood  is  found  there  is  found 
also  an  obstinacy  of  purpose  impossible  to  subdue — a  singularly 
ferocious  and  untamable  resolution  that  dies  only  with  annihilation. 
It  will  never  make  peace,  never  cease  from  the  trail,  never  let  go 
its  hold  upon  the  roads,  never  spare  a  captive,  never  yield  a  life  to 
mercy,  never  forgive  the  ruler  who  would  rule  as  a  Christian  and 
make  humanity  the  law  of  the  land. 

All  the  following  that  Juarez  had  now  was  one  of  guerrillas. 
Porfino  Diaz  lived  by  his  wits  and  his  prestamos .  Escobedo,  con- 
stitutionally a  coward  and  nationally  a  robber,  preyed  alone  upon 
his  friends.  Try  how  they  would,  the  French  found  him  always  a 
runaway  or  a  thief.  Negrete,  with  six  thousand  blanketed  ladroncs, 
abandoned  a  captured  train  and  fled  as  a  stampeded  buffalo  herd 
before  a  battalion  of  Zouaves.  Lozado  preserved  in  the  mountains 
c  f  Nayarit  an  armed  neutrality.  Corona,  in  the  delightful  posses- 
sion of  his  beautiful  American  wife,  sat  himself  down  in  Sonora 
and  waited  for  the  tide  to  turn.  For  his  country  he  never  so  much 
as  lifted  his  hand.  Cortina  prayed  to  the  good  Lord  and  the  good 
devil,  and  went  alternately  to  mass  and  the  monte  bank. 

They  all  held  on,  however.  An  unorganized  commune — the  goods 
of  other  people  were  their  goods,  the  money  of  other  people  was 
their  money.  As  long  as  the  rains  fell,  the  crops  matured,  the  cat- 
tle kept  clear  of  the  murrain,  and  bread-fruit  got  ripe,  and  the  mag- 
uey made  mescal,  they  were  safe  from  pestilence  or  famine.  The 
days  with  them  meant  so  many  belly  fulls  of  tortillas  and  frijoles. 

With  the  French  it  is  different.  Red  tape  has  a  dynasty  of  its 
own — a  caste,  a  throne,  an  army  of  field  and  staff  officers.  Each 
day  represented  so  many  rations,  so  many  bottles  of  wine,  so  many 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  375 

ounces  of  tobacco,  so  many  cigars,  so  much  soup  and  bread  and 
meat.  Failing  in  any  of  these,  red  tape  stepped  in  with  its  money 
commutation  in  lieu  of  rations.  Then  for  each  decoration  there 
was  an  annuity.  Some  Zouaves  drew  more  pay  than  generals  of 
brigade.  The  Malakoff  medal  so  much,  the  Inkermann  medal  so 
much,  the  Chinese  Emperor's  Palace  medal  so  much,  the  Fort  Con- 
stantine  medal  so  much, the  Magenta  and  Solferino  medals  so  much, 
the  Pueblo  medal  so  much,  and  so  much  for  all  the  rest  of  the  medals 
these  many  laureled  and  magnificent  soldiers  wore.  When  they 
.  were  paid  off  they  had  monthly  a  saturnalia, 

To  make  both  ends  meet,  Napoleon's  great  finance  minister, 
Langlais — loaned  as  an  especial  favor  to  Maximilian — did  the  work 
of  a  giant.  One  day  he  died .  Apoplexy,  that  ally  and  avenger  of  the 
best-abused  brain,  laid  hands  on  him  between  the  Palace  of  Chepul- 
tepec  and  the  office  of  the  treasury.  In  two  hours  he  was  dead. 
All  that  he  had  done  died  with  him.  Of  his  financial  fabric,  reared 
after  so  many  nights  of  torture  and  trouble,  there  was  left  scarcely 
enough  of  pillar  or  post  to  drape  with  mourning  for  the  single- 
minded,  sincere  and  gifted  architect.  In  the  dearth  of  specie  the 
church  was  called  upon.  The  church  had  no  money,  at  least  none 
for  the  despoiler  of  its  revenues  and  the  colonizer  of  its  lands. 
Excommunication  was  again  threatened,  and  thus  over  the  thresh- 
hold  of  the  altar  as  well  as  the  treasury,  there  crept  the  appalling 
shadow  of  bankruptcy. 

Bazaine  threatened,  the  Emperor  prayed,  the  Empress  threw 
into  the  scale  all  her  private  fortune  at  her  command.  Outside  the 
cabinet  walls,  however,  everything  appeared  fair.  Brilliant  reviews 
made  the  capital  gorgeous  and  enchanting.  There  were  operas,  and 
fetes,  and  bull-fights,  and  great  games  of  monte  in  the  public  square, 
and  duels  at  intervals,  and  one  unbroken  tide  of  French  successes 
everywhere.  Napoleon  sent  over  in  the  supreme  agony  of  the  crisis 
two  shirj  loads  of  specie,  and  there  was  a  brief  breathing  time  again. 
Meanwhile  they  would  see,  for  when  it  is  darkest  it  is  the  nearest 
to  the  morning. 

Inez  Walker,  the  rescued  maiden  of  Encarnacion,  was  too 
beautiful  to  have  been  lightly  forgotten.  Free  once  more,  and  with 
the  terrors  of  that  terrible  night  attack  all  gone  from  her  eager  eyes, 
she  had  continued  with  the  Expedition  to  the  capital,  courteously 
attended  each  day  by  an  escort  of  honor  furnished  as  regularly  as 
the  guards  were  furnished. 

In  the  City  of  Mexico,  at  the  time  of  her  arrival,  there  was  an 
American  woman  who  had  married  a  Prussian  prince,  and  who  was 
known  as  the  Princess  Salm  Salm.  Once  when  she  was  younger, 
she  had  ridden  in  a  circus,  several  of  them,  and  as  Miss  Agnes 
Le  Clerc  was  noted  for  her  accomplished  equestrianism,  her  magnifi- 
cent physique,  a  beauty  that  was  dark  and  over-bold,  a  devil-may- 


376  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

care  abandon  which  won  well  with  those  who  sat  low  by  the  foot- 
lights and  felt  the  glamour  of  the  whirling  music  and  the  red  flames, 
that  flashed  on  golden  and  gaudy  trappings  of  acrobat  or  actor. 

Miss  Le  Clere  had  met  the  Prussian  in  Mobile  after  the  American 
war  was  over.  The  Prince  had  been  a  Federal  General  of  brigade 
whose  reputation  was  none  of  the  best  for  soldierly  deeds,  although 
it  is  not  recorded  that  he  either  shunned  or  shirked  a  fight.  Still  he: 
was  not  what  these  parvenu  Americans  of  ours  think  a  prince  should 
be — he  did  not  clothe  himself  in  silver,  or  gold,  in  purple  or  fine, 
linen,  and  conquer  armies  as  Rarey  might  have  conquered  a  horse. 
There  were  some  stories  told,  too,  of  unnecessary  cruelty  to  prison- 
ers whom  the  fortunes  of  war  cast  upon  his  hands  helpless,  but 
these  did  not  follow  him  into  Mexico  with  his  American  wife,  who 
had  married  him  in  Mobile,  and  who  had  got  thus  far  on  her  way  in 
search  of  a  coronet. 

She  was  told  the  history  of  Inez  Walker,  and  she  was  a  brave, 
sympathetic,  tender-hearted  woman,  who  loved  her  sex  as  all  women 
do  whom  the  world  looks  upon  as  having  already  unsexed  them- 
selves. They  became  fast  friends  speedily,  and  were  much  together 
at  the  opera  and  upon  the  passeo  during  those  last  brief  yet  brilliant 
days  of  the  Empire. 

The  Prince  Salm  Salm  was  on  duty  with  a  brigade  at  Apam,  in 
the  mountains  toward  Tampico.  Guerrillas  had  been  at  work 
there  lately,  a  little  more  savage  than  usual,  and  Bazaine  sent  for- 
ward Salm  Salm  to  shoot  such  as  he  could  lay  hands  upon  and  dis- 
perse those  that  could  not  be  caught.  He  acted  with  but  little  of" 
energy,  and  with  scarcely  anything  of  ambition.  He  was  recalled 
finally,  but  not  until  his  wife  had  been  grossly  insulted  and  a  Con-, 
federate  had  avenged  her. 

One  day,  in  &cafe,  several  groups  of  Belgian  officers  were  at  the 
tables  sipping  their  wine,  and  jesting  and  talking  of  much  that  was 
bad  and  useless.  At  other  places  there  were  Austrians  and  French, 
and  a  few  Spaniards,  who  even  then  were  beginning  to  avoid  the 
foreigners,  and  a  single  American,  who  was  sitting  alone  and  at  his. 
leisure. 

Dr.  Hazel  was  a  young  physician  from  South  Carolina,  who. 
had  gone  through  the  siege  of  Sumter  with  a  devotion  and  a  con- 
stancy that  had  found  their  way  into  general  orders,  and  that  had 
returned  in  the  shape  of  a  rain  more  precious  to  a  soldier  than  sun- 
light to  flowers — the  rain  of  official  recognition.  In  addition  to  the 
compliments  received  he  was  promoted.  As  he  sipped  his  claret,, 
several  ladies  entered,  some  attended  and  some  unattended.  French, 
custom  makes  a  cafe  as  cosmopolitan  as  the  street  All  sexes  con- 
gregate there,  and  all  stratas  of  society;  custom  simply  insists  that 
the  common  laws  of  society  shall  be  obeyed — that  those  of  the 
demi-monde  shall  not  advertise  their  profession,  that  the  gambler. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  377 

shall  not  display  his  cards,  the  guerrilla  uncoil  his  lasso,  the  grand 
dame  exhibit  her  prude  y,  the  detective  his  insincerity  and  the 
priest  liis  protests  and  his  confessional.  Appetite  admits  of  no 
divided  sovereignty,  and  hence,  at  meal  time,  the  French  recognize 
only  one  class  in  society,  that  of  the  superlatively  hungry. 

The  Princess  Salm  Salm  returned  the  salutation  of  several 
French  officers  as  she  entered,  and  bowed  once  or  twice  in  acknowl- 
edgment of  salutes  rendered  by  the  Austrians  of  her  husband's 
brigade.  Beyond  these  she  seemed  to  prefer  isolation  and  privacy. 
Among  the  Belgians  there  was  a  Major  who  had  a  huge  yellow 
beard,  a  great  coarse  voice,  a  depth  of  chest  like  an  ox,  a  sword-belt 
whose  extent  would  girth  a  hogshead.  In  French  cafes,  gentlemen 
very  rarely  speak  above  the  low  conversational  tone  of  the  drawing 
room.  To  be  boisterous  is  to  be  either  drunk  or  a  blackguard. 
This  Belgian,  Major  Medomark  of  the  Foreign  Legation,  did  not 
seem  to  be  drunk,  and  yet  as  he  looked  at  the  Princess  Salm  Salm, 
his  voice  would  change  its  intonation  and  deepen  harshly  and  grat- 
ingly. If  he  meant  to  be  offensive  he  succeeded  first  rate. 

The  Princess  pushed  back  her  plate  and  arose  as  one  who  felt 
that  she  was  the  subject  of  conversation  without  understanding  the 
words  of  it.  As  she  passed  through  the  door,  Medomark  boister- 
ously and  in  great  glee,  called  out  a  slang  term  of  the  circus,  and 
shouted  : 

"Hoopla!" 

The  Agnes  LeClere  that  was  of  the  sawdust  and  tights,  the 
Princess  Salm  Salm  that  is  now  of  the  titles  and  diamonds,  heard 
the  brutal  cry  and  felt  to  her  heart  the  studied  insult.  Turning 
instantly,  she  came  again  half  into  the  cafe — her  eyes  full  and  dis- 
colored with  passion,  and  her  face  so  white  that  it  appeared  as  if  the 
woman  was  in  mortal  pain.  She  could  not  speak,  though  she  tried 
hard,  poor  thing,  but  she  looked  once  at  Medomark  as  if  to  crush 
him  where  he  sat,  and  once  to  Hazel,  who  understood  it  all  now, 
and  arose  as  she  again  retired. 

He  went  straight  to  his  American  countrywoman.  At  the  cow- 
ardly inference  of  the  Belgian,  the  French  officers  had  laughed  and 
the  Austrians  had  applauded.  Even  those  of  her  husband's  own 
brigade  had  not  uttered  protest  or  demanded  apology.  Hazel  found 
her  in  tears. 

"You  have  been  insulted,"  he  said.  "I  know  it,  pr  rather,  I 
may  say  I  saw  it.  Not  understanding  German,  if,  indeed,  the  Bel- 
gians speak  German,  I  have  to  rely  for  my  opinion  more  upon  the 
manner  than  the  matter  of  the  insult.  Your  husband  is  away,  you 
are  an  American  lady,  you  are  a  countrywoman  of  mine,  you  are  in 
trouble  and  you  need  a  protector.  Will  you  trust  your  honor  in  my 
hands? " 

This  actress  was  a  brave,  proud  woman,  born,  perhaps,  to  rule 
men  as  much  by  the  force  of  her  will  as  the  bizarre  style  of  her 


378  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

beauty  and  her  physical  development.  She  took  Hazel's  hand  and 
thanked  him,  and  bade  him  chastise  the  insolent  bully.  She  knew 
very  well  what  chastisement  meant  in  the  language  of  a  soldier,  and 
she  was  a  soldier's  wife.  She  never  referred  to  the  future,  how- 
ever. She  did  not  even  evince  interest  enough  to  be  curious.  Per- 
haps her  passion  kept  her  from  this — at  least  her  champion  bowed 
low  to  her  as  he  entered,  thinking  her  the  coldest  woman.a  man 
ever  put  his  life  in  jeopardy  for.  Cold  she  was  not.  She  simply 
considered  what  was  done  for  her  as  being  done  because  of  her 
inalienable  right  to  have  it  done.  She  was  not  familiar,  she  only 
tolerated. 

Hazel,  in  stature,  was  very  slight.  As  he  stood  up  before 
Medomark  the  huge  Belgian  glowered  upon  him  as  Goliah  of  Gath 
might  have  done  upon  David. 

"  Do  you  speak  English  ?  "  he  asked  of  the  Major. 

"A  little." 

"Enough  to  understand  the  truth  when  I  tell  it  to  you  ?  " 

' '  Perhaps,  if  it  is  not  so  plain  that  for  the  telling  I  will  have  to 
break  every  bone  in  your  body.  " 

Medomark's  voice  was  one  of  that  uncontrollable  kind  that  ran 
away  with  a  subject  in  spite  of  itself.  He  meant  to  be  quiet  so  as 
not  to  attract  attention,  but  he  was  so  rude  that  many  of  the  specta- 
tors quit  eating  to  look  on. 

"  That  lady,  "  Hazel  continued,  "who  has  just  gone  out  is  a 
country-woman  of  mine.  She  may  have  been  an  actress  just  as  you 
may  have  been  a  hangman's  son,  but  whatever  she  has  been  she  is  a 
woman.  We  do  not  insult  women  in  the  country  where  I  once 
lived,  nor  do  we  permit  it  to  be  done  elsewhere.  Will  you  apologize 
to  her?" 

"I  will  not." 

"  Will  you  accept  this  card  and  let  me  send  a  friend  to  you  ?" 

"I  will  with  pleasure." 

"  Then,  I  wish  you  good  day,  gentlemen, "  and  Hazel  bowed  to 
all  as  he  went  out,  like  a  man  who  had  just  finished  his  dinner. 

Medomark  was  brave,  besides,  he  was  an  officer.  There  were, 
therefore,  but  two  courses  left  to  him,  but  two  things  to  do — to 
accept  Hazel's  cartel  or  to  refuse  it.  In  preference  to  disgrace  he 
chose  the  duello.  Hazel  found  his  second  speedily.  He,  too,  was 
a  soldier — one  of  Shelby's  best,  James  Wood — who  would  go  to  any 
extreme  on  earth  for  a  friend. 

When  two  men  mean  business, the  final  arrangements  are  simply 
matters  of  form.  On  the  morning  after  Medomark's  insult  in 
the  cafe,  Wood  called  upon  him  early.  During  the  day  the  pre. 
liminaries  were  all  amicably  agreed  upon,  and  at  sunrise  the  next 
morning,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  southeast  of  the  American  bury- 
ing ground,  Hazel  and  Medomark  met  at  ten  paces  with  duelling 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  379 

pistols.  The  Belgian's  second  was  a  young  French  Lieutenant 
named  Massac,  who  won  both  the  position  and  the  word.  When  the 
men  took  their  places,  Hazel  had  the  sun  in  his  eyes,  and  this 
annoyed  him  at  first,  for  it  was  very  hot  and  penetrating.  They 
fired  twice  at  each  other.  The  first  time  both  missed,  the  sec- 
ond time  Hazel  struck  Medomark  upon  the  outside  point  of  the 
right  shoulder,  injuring  the  bone  greatly  and  severing  an  artery  that 
bled  as  if  the  man  would  bleed  to  death.  Prompt  and  efficient 
surgical  skill,  however,  saved  his  life.  The  duel  ended  after  the 
second  fire,  and  the  Princess  Salm  Salm,  so  splendidly  vindicated  at 
the  hands  of  her  young  countryman,  was  the  toast  thereafter  of  the 
officers  of  the  garrison.  The  Prince  on  his  return  could  not  render 
thanks  enough,  nor  seek  to  show  his  appreciation  of  the  chivalrous 
act  by  too  many  evidences  of  a  more  substantial  gratitude.  The  city 
being  under  martial  law,  a  court-martial  was  soon  convened  for  the 
trial  of  all  who  were  engaged  in  the  duel.  A  sentence,  however/ 
was  never  reached.  Upon  the  request  of  Bazaine,  the  court  was  dis- 
missed and  the  prisoners  set  at  liberty.  Medomark  recovered  fully 
only  to  be  desperately  wounded  again  at  Queretaro,  where,  after 
long  and  devoted  attention  on  the  part  of  Dr.  Hazel,  a  suigeon  in 
the  Republican  army,  he  was  restored  to  both  health  and  liberty. 
From  this  little  episode  a  friendship  sprung  up  which  has  remained 
unbroken  to  this  day.  *  * 

The  colony  at  Carlota  grew  apace  and  was  prosperous.  The 
men  began  to  cultivate  coffee  and  sugar,  and  from  a  jungle  the  plan- 
tations soon  bloomed  and  blossomed  like  another  Paradise.  As  an 
especial  favor  from  Maximilian,  Shelby  was  permitted  to  pre  empt 
the  hacienda  of  Santa  Anna,  not  a  hacienda,  however,  that  had 
belonged  to  this  prince  and  chief  of  conspirators,  but  one  that  had 
been  named  for  him.  Spaniards  once  owned  it,  but  in  the  massa- 
cres of  the  revolution  all  had  perished.  About  the  ruins  of  the 
fortress  which  still  abounded,  there  were  signs  which  told  of  the 
fury  of  the  onslaught  and  the  scorching  of  the  flames  that  fol- 
lowed when  the  rapine  and  the  ravishments  were  done.  Situated 
two  miles  from  Cordova,  and  in  the  very  purple  heart  of  the  tropics, 
it  might  have  been  made  at  once  into  a  farm  and  a  flower  garden. 
Twelve  acres  were  put  in  coffee,  and  coffee  well  cultivated  and  per- 
mitted to  grow  in  a  land  where  there  is  law  and  protection  pays  to 
the  raiser  a  minimum  price  per  acre  of  $1,500.  It  seems,  however, 
that  nature  is  never  perfect  in  the  equilibrium  of  her  gifts.  There, 
where  the  soil  is  so  deep,  the  air  so  soft,  the  climate  so  delicious,  the 
trade  winds  so  cool  and  delightful,  the  men  alone  are  idle,  and  come 
in  the  night  to  the  plantations  of  the  foreigners  to  break  down  their 
coffee  trees,  poison  their  spring  water,  wound  their  dumb  stock,  and 
damage  everything  that  can  be  damaged  and  that  comes  in  their 
way. 


380  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

In  the  mountains  in  the  rear  of  Shelby's  plantation  a  robber  band 
renchzvoused.  Its.  chief,  Don  Manuel  Rodriguez,  was  a  daring 
leader,  who  descended  to  the  plains  at  intervals  with  a  reckless  fol- 
lowing, and  made  headway  for  hours  at  a  time  in  his  work  of 
gathering  up  supplies  and  levying  prestamos.  In  a  month  after 
Shelby's  arrival  a  friendly  relationship  was  established,  and  there- 
after, until  the  end,  Rodriguez  protected  Santa  Anna,  and  lived  at 
peace  with  all  who  were  settled  round  about.  Just  how  the  nego- 
tiations were  commenced  and  consummated  which  led  to  a  truce  so 
satisfactory  and  so  necessary,  none  ever  knew,  but  true  it  is  that 
in  the  cool  of  the  evenings,  and  when  the  French  drums  had  beaten 
tattoo  at  the  fort  only  half  a  mile  away,  Rodriguez  would  come  down 
from  his  fastnesses  as  a  peaceful  visitor,  acd  sit  for  hours  among  the 
Americans,  asking  of  the  Yankee  country,  and  the  ups  and  the 
downs  of  the  Yankee  war,  for,  to  a  Mexican  everything  is  Yankee 
which  is  American. 

Ex  Governor  Isham  G.  Harris,  of  Tennessee,  also  a  settler,  might 
have  been  designated  the  Alcalde  of  Carlota.  The  Confederates 
looked  upon  him  with  a  kind  of  reverence.  By  the  side  of  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston  when  he  got  his  death  wound,  he  had  taken  him  in 
his  arms  and  held  him  there  until  the  mist  came  into  Us  sad,  pro- 
phetic eyes,  and  until  the  brave,  fond  heart,  broken  by  his  country's 
ingratitude,  and  the  clamor  of  despicable  and  cowardly  politiciaEs, 
had  ceased  to  beat.  Brownlow  especially  wanted  Harris,  and  so 
Harris  had  come  to  Mexico.  He  knew  Brownlow  well — a  bitter, 
unrelenting,  merciless  fanatic,  and  a  fanatic,  too,  who  had  come  in 
on  the  crest  of  the  wave  that  had  drowned  the  cause  for  which 
Harris  fought.  He  believed  that  if  the  old  Pagan  failed  to  find  a 
law  for  his  capital  punishment,  he  would  succeed  certainly  through 
the  influence  of  gold  and  political  power  over  an  assassin.  Unwill- 
ing at  all  events  to  risk  the  tyrant,  he  found  penniless  asylum  at 
Cordova,  poor  only  in  pocket,  however,  and  courageous  and  proud 
to  the  last.  He  was  a  cool,  silent,  contemplative  man,  with  a  heavy 
lower  jaw,  projecting  forehead,  and  iron  gray  hair.  In  his  princi- 
ples he  was  an  Ironside  of  the  Cromwellian  type.  Perhaps  the 
intense  faith  of  his  devotion  gave  to  his  character  a  touch  of  fatal- 
ism, for  when  the  ship  stranded  be  was  cast  adrift  utterly  wrecked 
in  everything  but  his  undying  confidence  in  the  success  of  the  Con- 
federacy. He  believed  in  Providence  as  an  ally,  and  rejected  con- 
stantly the  idea  that  Providence  takes  very  little  hand  in  wars  that 
come  about  between  families  or  States,  if,  indeed,  in  wars  of  any 
kind.  With  his  great  energy,  his  calm  courage,  his  shrewd,  prac- 
tical intercourse  with  the  natives,  his  record  as  a  governor  and  a 
soldier,  he  exerted  immense  influence  for  good  with  the  soldier-set- 
tlers and  added  much  to  the  strength  and  stability  of  the  colony, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  381 

Colonel  Perkins,  of  Louisiana,  a  judge  of  great  fame  and  ability, 
and  a  lawyer  as  rich  in  triumphs  at  the  bar  as  he  was  possessed  of 
slaves  and  cotton  bales  upon  his  plantation,  abandoned  everything 
at  home  but  his  honor,  and  isolated  himself  among  his  coffee  trees 
and  bananas.  When  the  war  closed  he  took  a  week  to  speak  his 
farewells  and  burn  his  dwelling  house,  his  cotton  presses,  his 
stables,  barns,  out-houses,  and  to  make  in  fact  of  his  vast  possessions 
a  desert.  He  had  a  residence  rich  in  everything  that  could  amuse, 
instruct,  delight,  gratify.  Painting,  statuary,  flowers,  curiosities, 
rare  plants,  elegant  objects  of  vertu  and  art  were  there  in  abun- 
dance, and  when  from  the  war  he  returned  crushed  in  spiiitand 
broken  in  health,  he  rested  one  night  brooding  amid  all  the  luxury 
and  magnificence  of  his  home.  He  arose  the  next  morning  a  stoic. 
"With  a  torch  in  his  hand  he  fired  everything  that  would  burn, 
leaving  nowhere  one  stone  upon  another  to  tell  of  what  had  once 
been  the  habitation  of  elegance  and  refinement.  In  his  Mexican 
solitude  he  was  an  aristocratic  philosopher,  complaining  of  nothing 
and  looking  back  with  regret  upon  nothing.  Sufficient  unto  the 
day  for  him  had  been  the  evil  thereof.  ^ 

General  Sterling  Price  was  another  settler.  Many  of  his  escort 
company  had  taken  lands  around  him.  The  patriarch  chief  in  a 
new  country,  he  sat  much  in  the  shade  about  his  tent,  telling  the 
stories  of  the  war  and  hoping  in  his  heart  for  the  tide  of  persecution 
and  proscription  in  Missouri  to  run  itself  out.  Politics  v-  as  as 
necessary  to  his  mental  equilibrium  as  sleep  to  his  physical.  In  the 
old  days  he  had  succeeded  well.  Nature  gave  him  a  fine  voice,  a 
portly  frame,  a  commanding  front,  agracefuland  dignified  carriage, 
an  aplomb  that  never  descended  into  nervousness,  and  hence  as  the 
speaker  of  a  legislative  body  he  was  unexcelled.  He  dreamed  of  a 
speakership  again,  of  a  governorship,  of  a  senatorship,  acd  he, 
therefore,  cultivated  more  corn  than  he  did  coffee,  for  it  takes  three 
years  for  coffee  to  grow  and  bear,  and  three  years  might — well,  he 
did  not  choose  to  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  three  years  and  wait. 

It  would  at  least  be  curious,  if  it  were  not  interesting,  to  go  in 
among  these  colonists  in  Carlota  and  learn  their  histories  while  dis- 
playing the  individuality  of  each.  A  common  misfortune  bound 
them  all  together  in  the  strength  of  a  recognized  and  yet  unwritten 
covenant.  The  pressure  of  circumstances  from  without  kept  them 
indissolubly  united.  Poverty,  that  dangerous  drug  which  stimu- 
lates when  it  does  not  stupefy,  lost  its  narcotism  over  men  whom 
war  had  chastised  and  discipline  made  strong  and  reflective.  They 
strove  for  but  one  purpose — to  get  a  home  and  occupy  it. 

The  privateer  Shenandoah,  that  mysterious  cruiser  whidi  was 
seen  rarely  at  sea,  yet  which  left  upon  the  waves  of  the  South 
Pacific  a  monstrous  trail  of  fire  and  smoke,  sent  her  officers  into 
the  colony  with  their  ship  money  and  their  cosmopolitan  hardi- 


382  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO : 

hood.  Lieutenants  Chew  and  Scales  took  valuable  land  and  went 
enthusiastically  to  work.  Around  the  hacienda  of  Santa  Anna 
there  was  a  cordon  of  strange  pioneers  who  had  histories  written  in 
characters  impossible  to  decipher.  The  hieroglyphics  were  their 
scars. 

And  so  affairs  prospered  about  Carlota,  and  the  long,  sunshiny 
days  went  on,  in  which  the  trade  winds  blew  and  the  orange  blos- 
soms scented  all  the  air.  It  was  near  three  days'  long  journey  to  the 
Capital,  but  rumors  travel  fast  when  every  ear  is  listening  for  them, 
and  a  report  deepened  all  along  the  route  from  Mexico  to  Vera  Cruz 
that  a  staff  officer  of  the  French  Emperor  had  left  Paris  for  the 
headquarters  of  Marshal  Bazaine.  A  multitude  of  reasons  were 
assigned  for  the  visit.  Napoleon  might  desire,  for  the  purposes  of 
information,  the  direct  observations  of  one  who  was  intimately 
acquainted  with  his  views  and  intentions.  It  might  be,  again,  with 
a  view  to  increasing  the  forces  of  the  Expedition,  or  to  the^mploy- 
ment  of  more  active  and  rigorous  measures  in  the  pacification  of  the 
country.  Accordingly,  as  men  were  hopeful  or  depressed,  they  rea- 
soned concerning  this  visit  of  the  French  staff  officer,  even  before 
the  officer  himself  was  half  across  the  Atlantic. 

From  first  to  last,  the  treasury  of  Maximilian  had  been  compara- 
tively empty.  He  curtailed  his  own  personal  expenses,  abandoned 
the  civil  list,  lived  like  a  plain  and  frugal  farmer,  set  everywLerean 
example  of  retrenchment  and  economy,  but  it  availed  nothing. 
Mexico,  with  all  of  her  immense  mineral  resources,  is,  and  has  been, 
usually  poverty  stricken.  There  is  no  agriculture,  and,  conse- 
quently, no  middle  class.  At  one  extreme  is  immense  wealth,  at 
the  other  immense  misery  Ignorance  and  superstition  do  the  rest. 

His  exertions  to  pay  his  soldiers  and  carry  forward  a  few  vitally 
necessary  internal  improvements,  were  gigantic.  Pendingthe  arrival 
of  the  French  envoy  extraordinary,  he  had  negotiated  a  loan  at 
home,  which  was  taken  by  patriotism — a  strange  word  for  a  Mexi- 
can— and  which  had  already  begun  to  flow  into  his  empty  coffers. 

Things,  therefore,  were  not  so  dark  as  they  had  been  when  Gen- 
eral Castelnau,  personal  aid-de-camp  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon, 
arrived  at  Vera  Cruz. 

General  Castelnau  kept  his  own  secret  well,  which  was  also  the 
secret  of  his  master,  Napoleon  III.  A  magnificent  review  was  held 
in  the  city  of  Mexico  at  which  he  was  present.  Soldiers  of  all  arms 
were  there,  and  a  great  outpouring  of  the  people.  Everything 
looked  like  war,  nothing  like  evacuation,  and  yet  General  Castelnau 
brought  with  him  definite  and  final  orders  for  the  absolute  and 
unconditional  withdrawal  of  the  French  troops. 

The  Empress  penetrated  the  purpose  of  his  mission  first  and 
again  came  forward  to  demand  a  last  supreme  effort  in  behalf  of 
the  tottering  throne.  She  would  go  to  Europe  and  appeal  to  its 


AN  UNWRITTEX  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  383 

chivalry.  The  daughter  of  a  king,  it  would  be  to  monarchs  to 
whom  she  would  address  herself  face  to  face.  She  was  young,  and 
beautiful,  and  pleading,  for  her  crown,  and  why  would  not  armies 
arise  at  her  bidding  and  march  either  to  avenge  or  reinstate  her? 
Poor,  heroic  woman,  she  tried  as  never  woman  tried  before  to  stem 
the  tide  of  fate,  but  fate  was  against  her.  First  the  heart  and  then 
the  head,  until  with  hope,  faith,  ambition,  reason  all  gone,  she 
staggered  out  from  the  presence  of  Napoleon  dead  in  all  things  but 
a  love  that  even  yet  comes  to  her  fitfully  in  the  night  time  as  dreams 
come,  bringing  images  of  the  trees  about  the  Alameda,  of  the  palace 
where  she  dwelt,  of  Miramar  and  Maximilian. 

In  the  summer  of  1866  she  sailed  for  Europe.  She  knew  Castel- 
nau's  mission,  and  she  determined  to  thwart  it.  There  was  yellow 
fever  at  Vera  Cruz  and  pestilence  on  the  ocean.  Some  of  her 
attendants  were  stricken  down  by  her  side  and  died  at  Cordova, 
others  on  board  the  ship  that  carried  her  from  port.  She  bore  up 
wonderfully  while  the  mind  held  out.  Nothing  affrighted  her. 
The  escort  marching  in  the  rear  of  her  carriage  was  attacked  by 
guerrillas.  She  alighted  from  it,  bade  a  soldier  dismount,  got  upon 
the  back  of  his  horse  and  galloped  into  the  fight.  Here  was  an 
Amazon  of  the  nineteenth  century  who  had  a  waist  like  a  willow 
wand,  who  painted  rare  pictures,  who  had  a  husband  whom  she 
adored,  who  sang  the  ballads  of  her  own  exquisite  making,  who  was 
struggling  for  a  kingdom  and  a  crown,  and  who  never  in  all  her 
life  saw  a  drop  of  blood  or  a  man  die. 

The  fight  was  simply  a  guerrilla  fight,  however,  and  from  an 
Amazon  the  woman  was  transformed  into  an  Empress  again — ten- 
der, considerate,  desperate  in  the  wild  emergency  upon  her,  and 
joyous  with  the  fierce  eagerness  of  her  longings  and  her  despair. 

Never  any  more  in  life  did  the  blue  eyes  of  her  husband  and  her 
lover  gaze  upon  that  fair  Norman  face,  almost  colorless  now  and  set 
as  a  flint  in  the  stormy  sunset  of  the  night  when  she  sailed  away  to 
her  destiny. 

Bazaine  took  his  time  to  obey  his  orders— indeed,  he  had  margin 
enough  and  leisure  enough  to  contract  his  lines  pleasantly.  Not 
always  overbold  in  retreat,  the  French  had  learned  well  the  nature 
of  Mexican  warfare  and  would  turn  sometimes  viciously  when 
galled  to  wincing  on  flank  or  rear,  and  deal  a  few  parting  blows 
that  unto  this  day  are  recalled  with  shudderings  or  impotent  vows 
of  vengeance. 

One  at  Matamoras  is  worth  a  mention.  The  Sixty-second  of  the 
line  did  garrison  duty  there  under  Colonel  Lascolat.  He  was  to 
Dupin  what  the  needle-gun  is  to  the  smooth-bore.  Dupin  destroyed 
singly,  at  short  range,  in  ambushments,  by  lonesome  roads,  in  sud- 
den and  unmerciful  hours — from  the  depths  of  isolation  and  the 
unknown.  Lascolat,  an  Algerian  officer  of  singular  ferocity, 


384  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

hunted  in  regiments.  Even  the  physique  of  his  men  was  angular, 
akish,  undulatory  like  the  movements  of  a  greyhound.  They 
would  march  thirty  miles  a  day  fighting,  bivouac  anywhere,  sleep  if 
they  could;  very  well,  if  they  could  not,  still  very  well.  With 
them  was  a  priest  who  wore  five  medals  he  had  won  in  battle.  When 
he  had  time  he  shrived  all  alike.  In  his  hands  the  cross  was  good 
enough  for  the  dying  who  spoke  Spanish  and  the  dying  who  spoke 
French.  In  the  presence  of  the  specter  he  took  no  .thought  of 
nationality. 

As  Lascolat  came  out  from  Matamoras,  a  portion  of  Escobedo's 
forces  pressed  him  inconveniently.  His  orders  from  Bazaire  weie 
to  take  his  time,  fight  only  when  forced,  be  dignified,  patient  and  dia- 
creet,  but  to  make  sure  of  his  egress  out  with  everything  that 
belonged  to  him  or  his.  Lascolat  had  under  him  two  battalions  of 
1,000  men  each.  The  third  battalion  composing  the  regiment  of  the 
Sixty-second  had  already  been  sent  forward  to  Jeanningros  at 
Monterey.  Escobedo  attacked  with  5,000.  He  knew  of  Lascolat's 
ferocity,  of  his  terrible  doings  about  and  along  the  Rio  Grande,  and 
he  meant  to  take  a  farewell,  the  memories  of  which  would  last  even 
unto  Algeria  again. 

One  afternoon  late  the  line  of  Lascolat's  march  led  through  a 
ravine,  which  commenced  broad  like  the  mouth  of  a  funnel  and 
tapered  down  to  a  point,  as  a  funnel  would  taper.  Near  the  outlet 
Escobedo  fortified  the  road  with  loose  boulders.  Behind  these  and 
upon  the  sides  of  the  acclivities  on  either  side  he  placed  his  men  in 
ambush.  He  had  no  artillery,  for  he  so  shaped  the  fight  as  to  make 
it  face  to  face  and  deadly.  Lascolat  entered  into  the  trap  listlessly. 
If  he  knew  what  had  been  prepared  for  him  he  made  no  sign.  Sud- 
denly the  loose,  disjointed,  impassive  wall  outlined  itself.  Some 
sharp  skirmishing  shots  came  from  the  front.  The  shadows  of  the 
twilight  had  begun  to  gather.  It  looked  ugly  and  ominous  where 
the  stones  were. 

Lascolat  called  a  halt  and  rode  back  along  the  ranks  of  his  men 
They  were  weary,  and  they  had  seated  themselves  upon  the  ground 
to  rest.  His  presence  fired  them  as  a  torch  passing  across  a  line  of 
ready  gas-lights.  He  spoke  to  them  pleasantly  in  his  Algerian 
vernacular: 

"The  Arabs  are  ahead.  We  are  hungry,  we  are  tired  ;  we  want 
to  go  into  camp ;  we  have  no  time  to  make  a  flank  movement. 
Shall  we  make  quick  work  of  the  job,  that  we  may  get  some  supper 
and  some  sleep?" 

The  men  answered  him  with  a  shout.  The  charge  commenced. 
It  was  a  hurricane.  The  barricade  of  rocks  was  not  even  so  much 
as  a  fringe  of  bulrushes.  Those  who  held  it  died  there.  The  hill 
slopes,  covered  with  prickly  pear  and  dagger- trees,  hid  a  massacre. 
The  Sixty-second  swarmed  to  the  attack  like  bees  about  a  hive  in 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  385 

danger.  Paralyzed,  routed,  decimated,  torn  as  a  tempest  tears 
Escobedo's  forces  fired  butane  fair  volley,  and  fled  as  shadows  flee 
when  the  wind  pursues.  The  dead  were  never  counted.  Lascolat's 
farewell  was  taken,  but  those  who  came  out  well  from  the  hand- 
shaking slackened  march  not  a  step  until  the  route  had  passed  into 
Matamoras,  and  over  against  a  river  that  might  be  crossed  for  the 
wading.  Thereafter  the  Sixty-second  foraged  as  it  pleased,  and 
took  its  own  time  toward  the  coast. 

Colonel  Depreuil  was  in  danger — Shelby's  old  antagonist  of  Parras 
— and  it  remained  for  Shelby  to  save  him.  In  the  marchings  and 
countermarchings  of  the  evacuation,  Depreuil,  commanding  six 
hundred  men  of  the  Foreign  Legion,  was  holding  a  post  twenty 
leagues  northwest  of  San  Luis  Potosi.  Douay,  with  inadequate 
cavalry,  was  keeping  fast  hold  upon  this  most  important  strategical 
point,  awaiting  the  detachments  from  the  extreme  north.  Shelby 
was  a  freighter  now,  and  had  come  from  the  City  of  Mexico  with  a 
strong  guard  of  Americans,  and  eighty  wagons  laden  with  supplies 
for  the  French.  After  reporting  to  Douay  he  was  sent  forward  with 
twenty  men  and  ten  wagons  to  Cesnola;  the  outlying  post  garrisoned 
by  Depreuil.  The  guerrillas,  emboldened  by  the  absence  of  cavalry, 
had  risen  up  some  two  thousand  strong,  and  were  between  San  Luis 
and  Cesnola.  As  Shelby  marched  on  into  the  open  country  his 
advance,  under  James  Kirtley,  was  fired  upon,  and  two  soldiers, 
James  Ward  and  Sandy  Jones,  severly  wounded.  He  countermarched 
to  an  abandoned  hacienda,  encamped  his  wagons  within  the  walls, 
fortified  as  best  he  could,  and  sent  Kirtley  back  with  two  men  to 
report  the  condition  of  affairs  to  General  Douay.  Kirtley  was  not 
well  mounted,  he  had  served  awhile  in  the  Third  Zouaves,  the 
hostile  Mexicans  were  swarming  about  all  the  roads,  it  looked  like 
death  to  go  on,  it  certainly  was  death  to  be  taken,  and  so  he  started 
when  the  night  fell,  having  with  him  two  comrades,  tried  and  true — 
George  Hall  and  Thomas  Boswell. 

It  was  thirty  good  miles  to  San  Luis  Potosi,  and  those  who  wny- 
laid  the  roads  had  eyes  that  saw  in  the  night  and  were  not  baffled. 

Captain  James  Kirtley,  burnt  almost  brown  by  exposure,  and  by 
four  long  years  of  struggle  with  the  wind  and  the  sun,  had  the  face 
of  a  Mexican  and  the  heart  of  an  English  lancer  who  rode  down  to 
the  guns  with  Cardigan  and  the  Light  Brigade.  Peril  affected  his 
spirits  as  wine  might.  Ambition  and  adventure  with  him  were  twin 
mistresses— blonde  to  his  eyes,  beautiful,  full  of  all  passionate  love, 
fit  to  be  worshiped,  and  they  were  worshiped.  Always  brave,  he 
had  need  to  be  always  generous.  Danger,  when  it  does  not  deter, 
sometimes  gives  to  those  who  fear  it  least  a  certain  kind  of  pensive- 
ness  that  is  often  mistaken  for  indifference.  When  aroused,  how- 
ever, this  kind  of  a  pensive  man  rides  harder  and  faster,  fights  longer 
and  more  desperately,  will  hold  on  and  hang  on  under  greater  stress, 


386  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

reach  out  his  life  in  his  open  hand  oftener,  and  die,  if  so  the  fates 
desire,  with  less  of  murmur  and  regret  than  a  regiment  of  great 
roystering  soldiers  whose  voices  are  heard  in  songs  in  the  night  with 
the  mighty  roll  and  volume  of  the  wind  among  the  pines. 

Kirtley,  even  under  the  tawny  paint  the  sun  had  put  upon  h.'i 
face,  would  blush  like  a  girl  when,  to  some  noted  deed  of  soldierlj 
daring,  public  attention  directed  the  eyes  of  appreciation.  Praise 
only  made  him  more  reticent  and  retired.  As  he  never  talked  of 
himself,  one  could  not  hear  ought  of  his  valorous  deeds  from  his 
own  lips,  for  these  were  a  part  of  himself.  To  compliment  him 
was  to  give  him  pain — to  natter  was  to  offend;  and  yet  this  young 
hero,  not  yet  a  man,  surrounded  by  all  things  that  were  hostile, 
even  to  the  langnage,  known  to  have  been  a  soldier  in  the  Third 
Zouaves,  the  terror  of  the  Empire,  badly  mounted  for  pursuit  or 
escape,  came  with  a  smile  upon  his  face  for  the  perilous  venture, 
and  rode  away  and  into  the  night  and  the  unknown,  in  quest  of 
succor  for  Depreuil  and  his  beleaguered  garrison. 

It  was  a  long  thirty  miles  he  had  to  go,  the  three  men,  Kirtley, 
Hall  and  Boswell.  On  every  side  there  were  guerrillas.  The  night 
was  dark,  although  the  road  was  plain,  for  it  was  the  great  national 
highway  which  ran  from  Monterey  to  the  Capital.  The  danger, 
however,  came  from  the  fact  that  it  was  too  plain.  Others  knew 
of  it,  and  rode  along  it,  and  crouched  in  ambushment  upon  it,  and 
made  it  a  torment  for  small  parties  by  day  as  well  as  by  night. 

Kirtley,  even  in  the  darkness,  advanced  in  skirmishing  order. 
First,  he  of  the  three  went  alone  in  advance,  behind  him  was  Hall, 
and  in  the  rear  of  Hall,  Boswell.  Between  eac  h  was  the  distance  of 
twenty  yards.  It  was  necessary  to  get  word  through  to  Douay,  and 
Kirtleyargued  the  less  risk  taken  the  greater  chance  therewould  be 
for  one  of  the  party  getting  through. 

"  We  must  keep  apart, "he  said,  "just  far  enough  to  succor  each 
other,  but  not  too  close  to  be  killed  by  the  discharge  of  a  shot-gun, 
as  out  of  a  flock  of  partridges  one  might  kill  a  bag  full." 

The  ride  was  a  silent  and  grimly  tenacious  one.  Three  times 
they  turned  from  the  high  road  to  avoid  a  scouting  party  of  guerril- 
las, and  once,  in  going  past  a  little  group  of  four  or  five  huts  by  the 
wayside — a  place,  indeed,  where  mescal  is  sold,  and  where,  upon  all 
the  roads  in  Mexico,  huts  are  concentrated  for  this  purpose  alone — 
Kirtley,  who  had  kept  his  position  fixedly  in  front  the  whole  night 
through,  was  fired  upon  from  an  angle  of  a  house.  The  bullet 
missed  his  left  thigh  barely,  and  imbedded  itself  in  the  flank  of  his 
poor,  tired  horse  that  had  borne  himself  stanchly  through  it  all. 
One  drop  of  blood  was  more  really  than  the  weary  animal  could 
afford  to  give  up,  but  this  wound  bled  freely,  and  the  horse  stag- 
gered as  he  went.  It  was  yet  three  leagues  to  San  Luis  Potosi, 
and  the  night  had  turned.  By  dint  of  much  coaxing  and  walking 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  387 

to  relieve  him,  Kirtley  managed  to  get  over  some  further  ground 
slowly.  He  felt  for  his  horse,  as  all  cavalry  soldiers  do,  and  from 
the  wound  to  his  abandonment  he  never  struck  him  once  with  the 
spur,  though  it  might  be  that  his  life  hung  upon  the  gait  the  horse 
went,  weak  and  crippled  as  it  was.  The  wound  was  deeper  than 
any  one  of  the  three  thought,  and  so,  when  nearer  the  bottom  of  an 
abrupt  descent,  the  gallant  steed  lurched  forward  suddenly,  caught 
as  it  were  by  his  fore  feet,  reeled  blindly,  and  fell  forward,  too  help- 
less to  arise  again,  too  far  gone  for  leech  or  surgeon -craft. 

Kirtley  murmured  not.  Looking  once  at  his  faithful  companion, 
as  if  in  infinite  pity,  he  strode  on  under  the  stars  on  foot,  keeping  his 
place  still  in  the  advance,  and  keeping  his  pensive  face  fixed  in  the 
iron  mold  of  its  energy  and  determination. 

It  was  daylight  when  the  three  dauntless  scouts  reached  the 
French  outposts  at  San  Luis  Potosi — tired,  safe,  proud  of  the  perils 
passed,  ready  to  return  at  a  word  and  to  carry  back  the  succor 
Shelby  so  much  needed  at  this  time  himself,  and  the  succor 
Depreuil  had  needed,  without  knowing  it,  for  a  week. 

Douay  gave  to  the  three  soldiers  a  soldier's  welcome.  His  old 
gray  head,  inclined  a  little  forward,  heard  all  the  report  through 
that  Shelby  had  sent,  and  it  was  brief  enough  even  for  him  who 
dealt  mostly  in  gestures  or  monosyllables. 

"You  have  ridden  all  night,"  he  said,  "and  you  need  food, 
sleep,  brandy,  horses.  Captain." 

An  aide  came. 

"  Your  pardon  one  moment,  General,"  said  Kirtley,  "while  I 
correct  you.  We  do  not  need  any  sleep.  As  we  return  we  can 
sleep  as  we  ride.  That  was  once  part  of  our  drill.  We  left  our 
General  in  danger,  and  he  in  turn  sent  us  forward  to  notify  you  of 
the  danger  of  your  Colonel.  We  will  take  the  food,  the  brandy 
and  the  horses,  but  the  sleep,  no,  General,  with  many  thanks." 

Douay's  keen  brown  eyes  opened  wide  at  this  frank  and  ingen- 
uous speech.  It  pleased  him  more  than  he  cared  to  say,  more  than 
he  admitted  then.  Afterward,  when  a  soldier  led  up  a  magnificent 
Arab  stallion  to  the  meson  where  Kirtley  was  eating  and  presented 
it  to  him  in  the  name  of  Douay,  the  young  American  felt  in  his 
heart  the  gratified  pride  of  one  whose  perils  and  frankness  had  mer- 
ited recognition  at  the  hands  of  him  who  had  fought  in  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world,  and  who  had  grown  up  from  childhood  to 
old  age  a  hero  beloved  by  the  army  and  revered  by  a  nation. 

Before  the  sun  rose  three  squadrons  of  Chasseurs,  a  section  of 
flying  artillery,  and  the  three  Americans  thrown  forward  as  guides, 
were  galloping  back  toward  the  hacienda  at  which  Shelby  was  for- 
tified and  fighting.  Each  American  had  been  supplied  with  a  splen- 
did horse  by  Douay,  and  althought  they  had  ridden  ten  leagues  the 
night  before,  they  pressed  on  indifferent  to  fatigue  and  impervious 
to  the  demands  of  sleep. 


388  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

It  was  time.  Shelby,  of  his  whole  force  of  twenty  men,  had 
only  fifteen  left:  Two  had  been  wounded,  and  three  had  been  sent 
back  to  San  Luis  Potosi  for  succor.  Of  the  wagons  he  had  formed 
a  corral.  Between  the  wheels  and  in  front  and  rear  he  had  piled  up 
sand-bags.  Among  the  freight  destined  for  Dupreuil's  outpost  weie 
several  hundred  sacks  of  corn.  These  were  emptied,  filled  up  again 
with  sand,  and  laid  two  deep  all  about  the  wagons.  No  musket 
ball  could  penetrate  them,  and  the  guerrillas  had  no  artillery. 

A  summons  came  to  him  for  surrender. 

Shelby  parleyed  all  he  could.  He  dreaded  a  charge  where, 
from  sheer  momentum,  five  hundred  sheep  might  overrun,  and, 
perhaps,  crush  fifteen  men.  A  renegade  priest  named  Ramon 
Guitierrez,  having  the  name  of  a  blood-thirsty  priest  and  the 
fa  ne  of  a  cowardly  one,  too,  commanded  the  besiegers.  Before 
Shelby  would  talk  of  surrender  he  wanted  to  see  some  show  of 
force.  His  honor  did  not  permit  a  capitulation  without  his  reason 
was  convinced  that  to  resist  would  be  madness.  In  other  words,  he 
wanted  on  his  side  the  logic  and  reasonableness  of  war. 

Guitierrez  took  a  look  at  the  sand  bags,  and  thought  Shelby's 
propositions  very  fair.  He  took  another  and  a  closer  look,  having  in 
his  vision  this  time  the  gleaming  of  fifteen  rifle  barrels  and  the  ris- 
ing and  falling  of  rough,  hairy  faces  above  the  parapets  of  the 
hastily  constructed  fort,  and  he  concluded  to  accept  it.  To  be  very 
certain  of  passing  in  review  all  the  men  he  had,  he  marched  about 
in  various  directions  and  in  the  most  conspicuous  places  for  several 
hours — precious  hours  theywere,  too,  and  worth  a  week  of  ordinary 
time  to  those  who  never  meant  to  surrender,  but  who  expected  to 
fight  desperately,  maybe  unavailingly,  before  the  friendly  succor 
came. 

When  the  parade  was  over  Guitierrez  sent  word  to  ask  if  Shelby 
would  surrender. 

No,  he  would  not.  He  had  counted  some  five  hundred  illy 
armed  rancheros,  and  he  meant  to  fight  them  to  the  death.  Firing 
at  long  range  commenced.  The  'Americans  did  not  reply  to  it. 
The  sun  was  too  hot  for  the  kind  of  work  that  did  not  pay  in 
corpses.  Emboldened  by  this  silence,  the  Mexicans  crept  closer 
and  closer.  Here  and  there  a  bullet  found  its  way  into  the  fort. 
Volley  answered  volley  now,  and  then  the  noise  died  out  into  calm, 
cold,  cautious  skirmishing.  Shelby  had  mounted  two  dark  looking 
logs  at  either  angle  of  the  corral,  and  these,  from  a  distance,  looked 
like  cannon.  It  might  not  be  best  to  charge  them,  and  so  Guitierrez, 
crept  backward  and  forward  until  the  day  wore  well  on  its  way. 
Suddenly  he  gathered  together  his  followers  and  made  a  little 
speech  to  them.  It  was  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Both 
Ward  and  Jones,  who  had  been  wounded  the  day  before,  had 
Insisted  on  holding  an  embrasure  between  them.  They  had  strength 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  389 

enough  to  load  and  fire  their  breech-loaders,  and  they  were  not 
refused.    Every  bullet  counted  in  the  desperate  melee. 

With  a  shrill,  short  yell  the  Mexicans  dashed  forward  to  the 
attack.  Had  the  wave  held  on  its  course  it  would  have  inundated 
the  earthwork.  It  broke,  however,  before  it  reached  half  way 
across  the  open  space  behind  which  it  had  gathered  for  the  onset. 
Those  in  front  began  to  fire  too  soon,  and  those  in  the  rear,  not 
seeing  from  the  smoke  what  was  really  in  front,  fired,  too,  and 
without  aim  or  object.  With  unloaded  guns  they  dared  not  go  on 
— the  fire  of  the  Americans  was  distressing  beyond  endurance — the 
wave  broke  itself  into  fragments,  and  the  sun  sunk  lower  and 
lower. 

"Nearly  out  of  the  wilderness,  boys,"  Shelby  said;  as  his  wary 
and  experienced  eyes  took  in  the  outline  of  the  spent  charge  as  it 
made  itself  clear  against  the  range  of  hills  in  rear  of  it. 

"We  need  water  greatly,"  Ras  Woods  ejaculated,  his  mouth 
parched  and  his  face  black  with  powder  smoke. 

"  In  an  hour  you  shall  drink  your  fill,"  replied  Shelby,  *'  for  in 
an  hour  the  French  will  be  here." 

"But  if  Kirtley  has  fallen." 

"He  will  not  fall.  Luck  goes  with  him  everywhere.  What's 
that  ?" 

He  pointed  as  he  spoke  to  a  sudden  agitation  and  fluttering 
among  the  masses  of  the  besiegers,  who  were  now  galloping  furi- 
ously to  and  fro,  utterly  without  a  head  and  heedless  of  all  threat 
or  command. 

"  Ah  !"  and  Shelby's  face  cleared  up  all  at  once,  as  he  returned 
to  Woods,  "  you  can  go  out  for  water  now,  the  fight  is  over." 

Before  he  had  finished,  the  full,  ringing  notes  of  the  French 
bugles  were  heard,  and  in  a  moment  more  the  squadrons  emerged 
from  the  trees,  galloping  straight  and  in  beautiful  order  toward  the 
guerrillas. 

There  was  no  combat  after  the  French  appeared.  What  killing 
was  done  was  done  solely  upon  those  who  were  too  slow  in  the 
race,  and  who  could  not  reach  the  rocks  in  time  that  rose  up  on 
three  sides  as  a  series  of  walls  that  had  once  been  laid  with  much 
symmetry  and  had  fallen  in  rugged  yet  regular  masses  in  some  great 
convulsion  or  upheaval  of  nature.  Nowhere  in  fair  fight  was  a 
Mexican  cut  down,  nor  at  ho  single  time  did  even  a  squad  rally 
among  the  rocks  and  fire  back  upon  the  pursuing  cavalry.  The 
panic  at  last  degenerated  into  a  stampede,  while  the  impenetrable 
groves  of  cactus  shrubs  and  the  broken  and  uninhabitable  country 
swallowed  up  the  fugitives.  The  chase  soon  ended  and  the  French 
returned. 

These  two  rescuing  squadrons  were  led  by  Captain  Mesillon, 
whose  orders  were  very  full  and  explicit,  He  was  first  to  cut 


390  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Shelby  out  from  the  hostile  forces  which  surrounded  him,  and  next 
to  report  to  Shelby  and  march  whithersoever  Shelby  directed. 

The  French  rarely  put  faith  in  foreign  officers.  Their  vanity — 
a  kind  of  national  inheritance — recognized  no  merit  like  French 
merit,  no  superiority  in  war,  politics,  diplomacy,  love  or  religion 
like  French  superiority.  Hence,  where  Frenchmen  are  concerned, 
they  invariably  insist  that  Frenchmen  shall  alone  be  responsible. 
In  this  instance,  however,  Douay  wrote  this  manner  of  a  note  to 
Shelby: 

"To  complete  the  conquest  of  Colonel  Depreuil,  of  whose  bear- 
ing toward  you  at  Parras  I  have  been  duly  informed  by  General 
Jeanningros,  I  chose  that  he  shall  owe  his  life  to  you.  Captain  Mes- 
illon  awaits  your  orders.  I  need  not  advise  you  to  be '  circumspect, 
and  to  tell  you  to  take  your  own  time  and  way  to  reach  Cesnola  and 
bring  my  Frenchmen  back  to  me,  for  whom,  I  imagine,  there  is  no 
great  love  in  the  hearts  of  its  inhabitants." 

Mesillon  reported,  and  Shelby  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
Cuirassiers. 

"Since  Depreuil  has  to  come  out  from  Cesnola,"  Shelby  remarked 
to  the  young  French  Captain,  "and  since  General  Douay  expects 
us  to  make  haste  and  bring  him  out,  there  is  no  need  to  take  our 
wagons  further.  Guitierrez  has  been  too  badly  frightened  to  return 
here  much  under  a  month,  and  beyond  his  forces  I  can  hear  of  no 
others  in  the  mountains  round  about.  We  will  let  the  wagons,  there- 
fore, remain  where  they  are,  forage  and  rest  here  until  the  night 
falls,  and  then — strengthened  and  refreshed — cut  through,  ride  down 
or  ride  around  everything  that  opposes  us.  So  make  these  reso- 
lutions known,  Captain." 

The  Frenchman  bowed  and  retired.  He  saw  in  a  moment  that 
the  soldier  who  was  talking  to  him  knew  more  of  the  warfare  ahead 
in  a  moment  than  he  had  ever  seen  in  his  life.  He  knew,  further- 
more, that  if  the  worst  come  to  the  worst,  it  would  not  be  the  fault 
of  the  commander  if  Depreuil  was  not  rescued. 

The  night  came  and  the  column  started.  Between  the  road  where 
the  wagons  were  left,  and  Cesnola,  the  entire  country  was  alive  with 
guerrillas.  Beyond  Cesnola  there  were  no  Imperial  troops  of  any 
kind,  and  between  Cesnola  and  San  Luis  Potosi  there  was  neither 
garrisoned  town  nor  fortified  village.  It  was  a  stretch  of  ambusli 
sixty  miles  long. 

When  the  night  came  Shelby  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his 
detachment  and  never  drew  rein  until  Cesnola  was  reached.  The 
column  was  ambushed  seven  separate  and  distinct  times,  and  fired 
upon  from  hedges-rows,  from  behind  houses  in  villages  through 
which  it  passed,  and  from  a  variety  of  places  that  were  inaccessible 
to  the  sudden  dash  of  cavalry.  Twenty-eight  French  soldiers  were 
killed  and  wounded.  Twice  the  Captain  solicited  the  privilege  of 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  391 

4 

making  a  charge  upon  the  unseen  enemy  crouching  by  the  roadside, 
and  twice  he  was  refused. 

"You  lay  too  much  to  heart  these  mosquito  bites,"  Shelby  said 
to  him  kindly,  "when  there  is  danger  of  centipedes  and  tarantulas 
before  we  are  done  with  it.  A  man  is  bound  to  fall  out  here  and 
there,  hard  hit  and  may  be  killed,  but  the  balance  will  be  enough  to 
get  through.  When  one  gets  surrounded  as  Depreuil  has  done,  one 
must  expect  to  pay  the  penalty  of  the  rescue.  Sometimes  it  is 
extremely  costly,  but  the  night  favors  us,  and  there  is  no  moon. 
Keep  with  your  men,  Captain,  encourage  them,  expose  yourself 
freely  in  front  of  them,  talk  to  them  calmly,  and  my  word  for  it  you 
shall  reich  Cesnola  with  fewer  depletions  in  your  ranks  than  if  you 
charged  into  the  unknown  every  time  a  musket  volley  came  from  it." 

Depreuil  did  not  know  of  his  danger.  The  succoring  party 
appeared  to  him  as  an  apparition.  Well  fortified  at  Cesnola,  and 
having  at  his  command  no  cavalry  with  which  to  ascertain  what 
existed  beyond  the  range  of  his  cannon,  he  eat,  and  slept,  and  drank 
absinthe  with  the  same  nonchalance  his  life  in  Parras  manifested. 
Safe  for  the  day,  he  took  no  thought  of  the  morrow.  He  was  one 
of  those  officers  who  believed  that  one  French  battalion  was  stronger 
than  destiny — more  powerful  than  fate. 

Mesillon  awoke  his  reverie  rudely.  When  there  had  been 
explained  to  him  all  the  risk  Shelby  had  run  in  getting  cavalry  to 
him,  how  he  had  fought,  and  marched,  and  planned,  and  endured 
solely  for  his  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  humanity.  Depreuil's  heart 
softened  quickly.  He  came  to  Shelby  as  one  who  felt  that  he  had 
a  great  debt  of  gratitude  to  repay,  and  took  his  hands  in  both  of  his. 

"  Never  mind  the  past,"  he  commenced,  "nor  the  rude  things 
said  and  done  in  Parras.  I  see  it  all  now.  Perhaps  I  owe  my  life 
to  you — certainly  the  lives  of  many  of  my  soldiers,  for  whom  I  am 
responsible.  In  future  let  us  remember  each  other  only  as  brave 
men  and  soldiers.  I,  too,  like  Captain  Mesillon,  put  myself  under 
your  orders.  When  shall  we  evacuate  Cesnola?  " 

Shelby  had  his  revenge  at  last — that  kind  of  revenge  which  is 
always  sweet  to  noble  minds — the  revenge  of  returning  good  for 
evil.  He  answered  him: 

"Would  you  take  your  .heavy  cannon  with  you?" 

"  I  don't  know.     Would  you?" 

"  In  my  military  life  I  never  left  a  trophy  in  the  hands  of  my 
enemies.  Were  I  a  Frenchman  I  would  surely  carry  off  my  French 
guns." 

"  Then  in  a  day  we  can  march." 

"Let  it  be  so,  but  make  haste,  Colonel.  This  country  breeds 
guerrillas  as  the  marshes  do  miasma." 

Still  leading,  Shelby  came  away  from  Cesnola  in  command  of 
the  whole  French  force.  Depreuil's  men  wondered  a  little,  but 


392  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

Dupreuil,  in  the  height  of  his  gratitude,  thought  no  compliment 
sufficiently  high  to  pay  the  rough-clad,  quiet  American  fighter,  who 
did  not  even  have  so  much  as  a  red  sash  around  him  as  an  insignia 
of  rank  or  authority. 

Fighting  commenced  almost  as  soon  as  the  evacuation  of  Cesnola 
took  place.  Heading  always  the  Americans  and  Cuirassiers  in 
parson,  however,  Shelby  was  enabled  by  several  sudden  and  bloody 
repulses  to  put  such  a  wholesome  fear  of  punishment  in  the  minds 
of  the  pursuers  that  they  gave  him  ample  time  to  carve  out  for  the 
train  a  safe  road  in  front  while  protecting  amply  the  perilous  road 
in  the  rear. 

For  three  days  and  nights  he  held  on  his  course,  fighting  con- 
stantly and  caring  alike  for  his'dead  and  his  wounded.  The  morn- 
ing of  the  fourth  day  brought  him  to  the  French  lines  of  San  Luis 
Potosi  and  to  an  ovation.  General  Douay  turned  out  the  whole 
garrison  under  arms,  and,  as  the  detachment  which  had  been  doing 
garrison  duty  at  Cesnola  marched  in — worn  by  much  fighting — 
weary  from  long  marching — dusty  and  faint,  yet  safe  and  victorious 
— it  was  saluted  with  sloping  standards,  presented  arms,  and  the 
long  exultant  roll  of  triumphant  music. 

In  the  evening  Douay  called  upon  Shelby. 

"I  have  come  to  reward  you,"  he  said,  in  his  usual  bluff  and 
sententious  manner,  "and  would  be  glad  to  know  your  price." 

' '  Your  friendship,  simply,"  was  the  reply  of  the  proud  Amer- 
ican. 

"  That  you  already  have,"  the  good  old  General  continued,  "  but 
you  are  poor,  you  are  an  exile,  you  can  have  no  refuge  more  in  this 
country  when  it  is  known  that  you  rescued  a  French  garrison,  you 
have  been  turned  aside  from  your  business  as  freighter,  and  I 
demand  the  privilege  of  paying  you  at  least  for  your  time,  and  for 
your  losses  in  mules  and  wagons." 

"  Very  well,  General,"  Shelby  replied,  "  but  as  you  are  leaving 
the  country  you  must  wait  until  we  meet  again  in  the  City  of  Mex- 
ico, Until  then  remember  your  promise." 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

In  the  short  space  of  time  accorded  to  him  between  the  reception 
of  the  orders  brought  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  French  troops  and 
their  actual  accomplishment,  Maximilian  did  the  work  of  one  who 
meant  to  fight  a  good  fight  for  his  kingdom  and  his  cause.  And  yet 
for  the  great  superstructure  he  tried  so  hard  to  rear  and  decorate,  the 
poor  man  had  never  considered  a  moment  about  its  foundation. 
He  had  no  standing  army — nothing  to  rely  upon  when  the  French 
left  that  was  real  and  tangible — nothing  that  was  frank  and  manly 
and  that  would  take  him  boldly  by  the  hand  and  say:  "  Sire,  we  are 
here;  trust  us  as  you  would  yourself." 

When  that  sudden  dash  of  cavalry,  which  drove  Juarez  across 
the  Rio  Grande  and  into  Texas,  had  spent  itself,  and  when  it  was 
believed  that  there  was  no  longer  in  the  land  either  a  regularly 
armed  or  regularly  organized  force  of  Liberal  soldiers,  the  cele- 
brated black  flag  order  was  promulgated.  This  law — based  upon  the 
declaration  that  Juarez  had  left  the  country,  and  that  consequently 
there  could  be  no  longer  in  existence  any  regularly  constituted  gov- 
ernment— required  all  Mexicans  captured  with  arms  in  their  hands 
after  the  date  of  the  decree — October  3d,  1865 — to  be  summarily  put 
to  death.  Maximilian  resisted  its  passage  to  the  last,  but  Bazaine 
was  inexorable.  He  appeared  before  the  Council  of  State  and 
declared  upon  his  official  honor  that  Juarez  had  left  the  territory  of 
Mexico.  He  complained  of  the  leniency  shown  to  the  guerrillas, 
and  cited  numerous  instances  to  prove  how  French  soldiers,  cap- 
tured on  detached  service,  had  been  first  tortured  and  then  most 
brutally  murdered,  while  those  Mexican  prisoners  tried  under  the 
ordinary  forms  of  a  court-martial,  had  either  been  punished  lightly 
or  suffered  to  escape  altogether. 

Bazaine  triumphed,  as  he  always  did  when  brought  in  contact 
with  the  soft,  pliable  nature  of  the  Emperor,  and  almost  immediately 
after  the  decree  was  issued,  there  was  enacted  under  it  a  fearful 
obedience.  General  Mendez,  one  of  the  few  Mexicans  really  and 
sincerely  devoted  to  Maximilian,  was  holding  the  enemy  in  awe  in 
the  State  of  Morelia.  Of  a  sudden  he  turned  upon  a  guerrilla  force, 
routed  it,  captured  well  on  to  a  hundred,  shot  them  all,  and  pro- 
claimed in  triumphant  language  tlaat  such  should  be  the  fate  of  all 
who  came  within  reach  of  his  hands.  Among  the  slain  were  Gen- 
eral Arteaga  and  Colonel  Salasa.  Arteaga  was  what  was  rare  in 
Mexico,  a  genuine  humorist.  Corpulent,  fair  though  born  in  the 
tropics,  fond  of  laughter  and  wine,  in  no  wise  cruel  or  vindictive,  a 
soldier  from  necessity  rather  than  inclination,  a  judge  whose  decisions 


394  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

were  always  in  favor  of  the  guilty,  it  did  seem  a  sin  to  shoot  the 
great,  harmless,  laughing  gourmand,  who  told  his  jokes  much 
of tener  than  his  beads,  and  had  a  whole  regiment  of  friends  in  the 
very  ranks  of  the  French  army  itself.  Other  executions  took  place 
in  other  portions  of  the  Empire,  and  when  the  Emperor  found  that 
he  could  no  longer  resist  the  tide  of  blood  that  had  set  in,  he  quar- 
reled with  Bazaine.  The  Marshal  was  firm,  however,  and  the  Em- 
peror fled  to  Cuernavaca.  This  was  a  small  town  forty  miles  south- 
west from  the  City  of  Mexico.  It  had  the  deliciously  blended  cli- 
mate of  the  tropical  and  the  temperate  latitudes.  It  was  summer  in  the 
day,  and  antumn  in  the  night-time.  Maximilian  had  a  retreat  here, 
and  thither  he  would  go  when  State  cares  pressed  too  heavily  from 
without,  and  little  spites  and  pitiful  envies  and  jealousies  from  with- 
in. He  had  a  house  there  and  a  garden,  and  among  his  books  and 
his  flowers  he  held  loving  con  verse  with  the  past  and  the  present — 
the  great  who  had  passed  away  from  earth  and  the  beautiful  which 
still  remained.  From  these  communions  and  reveries  he  would 
return  a  more  patient  and  a  more  gentle  man. 

The  shooting  wect  on,  however,  and  Mendez  and  Miramon 
obeyed  the  decree  with  a  persistence  characteristic  solely  of  the 
Spanish  blood. 

As  the  French  lines  contracted,  the  skeleton  regiments  and  brig- 
ades of  Juarez  weref  ully  recruited.  In  many  places  those  Mexican 
troops  who  were  in  the  service  of  the  Empire  were  turned  upon  and 
and  beaten.  At  other  times  they  ran  without  a  fight,  throwing 
away  their  arms  and  disbanding  in  hopeless  and  helpless  confusion. 
Nowhere  in  the  whole  Imperial  army  was  there  an  organization 
worth  its  uniform  save  and  alone  those  few  Austrians  and  Hunga- 
rians personally  devoted  to  the  Emperor  and  calmly  resolved  to  die. 
If  at  any  time  Shelby's  conversation  ever  recurred  to  him,  he  made 
no  sign.  He  saw  probabty,  and  felt  more  keenly  than  any  one  there 
the  need  of  the  American  corps  Shelby  could  and  would  have 
recruiting  for  the  asking,  but  even  in  the  death  hour,  and  in  front  of 
the  ruined  wall  at  Queretaro,  he  died  as  he  had  lived — a  martyr  to 
his  belief  in  the  sincerity  of  Mexican  professions. 

Of  a  sudden,  and  at  one  merciless  blow,  Sonora  was  wrenched 
from  the  grasp  of  the  Empire.  The  French  had  already  abandoned 
it,  but  an  Austrian,  devoted  to  the  Empire,  General  Landberg,  held  it 
for  his  Majesty.  The  f  orces  under  his  command  werecomposed  almost 
exclusively  of  Mexicans.  Some  few  companies  of  these  had  Ameri- 
can officers.  One  in  particular  was  commanded  by  a  young  Confed- 
erate, Captain  W.  M.  Burwell,  who  was  from  the  Valley  of  Vir- 
ginia, and  who  had  won  high  honor  in  Pelham's  memorable  artil- 
lery. He  was  only  twenty,  and  had  a  face  like  a  school  girl.  Tall, 
gentle  in  aspect  and  manner,  with  deep  blue  eyes  and  raven  hair 
that  curled  and  shone,  he  came  into  the  Empire  a  boy  adventurer, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  395 

seeking  fame  and  service  in  a  foreign  land.  The  Princess  Iturbide, 
when  the  Valley  of  Virginia  was  a  Paradise,  had  visited  at  his  fath- 
er's house  and  had  looked  in  admiration  into  the  blue  eyes  of  the 
beautiful  boy.  This  boy,  not  yet  a  man  and  the  smoke  of  Virginia 
battle-fields  not  yet  gonefrem  his  long  black  hair,  came  to  the  coun- 
try of  the  Princess,  and  to  her  palace  by  the  Alameda.  When  he 
came  out  from  her  presence  he  was  a  Captain.  He  put  on  his  uni- 
form and  came  among  his  comrades  in  those  few  brief  days,  before 
the  marching,  a  young  Adonis — lithe,  superb,  a  little  Norman  in 
feature,  having  red  in  his  cheeks  and  dark  in  his  hair. 

All  day  had  the  battle  ebbed  and  flowed  about  the  port  of 
Guaymas.  A  swart,  fierce  southern  sun,  coming  in  red  from  the 
ocean,  got  hotter  and  hotter,  and  by  high  noon  it  was  blistering  in 
among  the  foot  hills  that  held  the  thin  handful  6f  Landberg's  dis- 
solving army.  Beautiful  on  the  crest  of  the  darkening  conflict 
stood  the  young  Virginian,  no  air  brave  enough  anywhere  to  blow 
out  the  curls  of  his  clustering  hair,  no  succor  anywhere  near  enough 
to  saved  the  flushed  cheeks  from  the  gray  and  the  pallor  of  the 
death  that  was  near.  Landberg  fell  in  the  thick  of  the  fight,  cheer- 
ing on  his  men  who  had  fought  well  for  Mexicans,  but  who  had 
fought  for  all  that  as  men'who  had  no  hope.  A  Frenchman,  Colonel 
De  Marsang,  rode  to  the  front.  The  army  was  falling  to  pieces. 
On  watch  in  the  port  of  Guaymas  two  French  frigates  had  been 
waiting  since  the  sunrise.  There  stood  safety  and  refuge  for  the 
shivered  remnants  when  once  well  extricated  from  the  coil  that 
Landberg  had  failed  to  break,  but  how  get  through.  De  Marsang 
spoke  to  Burwell,  saluting: 

"  Will  your  men  charge?  " 

"  It  may  be,  Colonel.     Your  orders." 

"  Yonder  is  a  battery  on  a  hill,"  pointing  as  he  spoke  to  four  six- 
teen pounders  massed  upon  an  eminence  that  commanded  the  only 
road  of  retreat  to  Guaymas,  "  and  it  is  scant  of  supporters.  Silence 
it  for  a  brief  half  hour  and  what  is  left  of  Landberg's  loyal  follow- 
ers shall  be  saved." 

Burwell  drew  his  sword.  He  spoke  to  his  men  very  gently.  He 
put  himself  at  their  head.  There  was  a  sudden  rush  of  some  fifty 
or  sixty  desparate  soldiers— a  mass  of  blue  and  flame  and  dust  and 
fuly — the  great  roar  of  the  guns  broke  hoarse  and  loud  above  the 
shrill,  fierce  cheer  of  the  men,  and  the  road  was  clear. 

They  brought  him  back  from  the  rout  of  the  cannoniers  with  a 
film  on  the  blue  eyes  and  white  on  the  pallid  cheeks.  He  spoke  not, 
neither  did  he  make  moan.  To-day  in  Guaymas  there  are  yet  those 
who  cross  themselves  and  tell  with  bated  breath  about  the  charge  of 
the  muy  bonita  Americano. 

Sonora  was  thus  lost  to  Maximilian,  and  all  the  coast  bordering 
upon  the  Pacific,  In  the  north,  department  after  department  was 


396  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

abandoned  by  the  French,  and  at  Matamoras,  after  a  bloody  siege 
and  a  desperate  combat  at  the  end,  Mejia — an  Indian  of  pure  blood 
and  truer  and  braver  than  all  the  multitude  of  Castilian  flatteries 
who  blessed  the  Emperor  and  fled  from  him  when  the  darkness  came 
— cut  his  way  out  from  environment  and  fell  back  wearily  and  hard 
bestead  toward  Monterey.  In  the  passage  out  through  the  lines  of 
Escobedo's  army,  an  American  squadron  died  nearly  to  a  man.  It 
had  been  recruited  upon  the  Rio  Grande,  and  was  composed  equally 
of  those  who  had  served  in  either  the  Federal  or  Confederate  army. 
Its  Captain,  Hardcastle,  was  one  of  Hooker's  best  scouts  ;  one  Lieu- 
tenant, Inge,  had  made  himself  a  name  with  Mosby  ;  another,  Sars- 
field,  an  Irishman  from  Memphis,  had  killed  a  comrade  in  a  duel 
in  Georgia,  and  had  fled  as  it  were  from  a  spectre  which  pursued 
hiaa;  seven  of  the  privates  had  but  an  arm  apiece;  all  had  seen  long 
and  desperate  service — all  were  soldiers  who  seemed  to  have  no 
home  and  no  country. 

Children  of  the  war,  what  a  life  history  many  of  them  had.  It  is 
related  of  the  little  band  that,  the  night  before  Mejia  began  the  work 
that  had  need  to  be  ended  speedily,  they  exchanged  with  one  another 
the  secret  of  each  heart.  Sorrows  had  come  to  the  most  of  them, 
and  memories  that  were  too  sad  for  repining,  too  bitter  for  tender- 
ness or  tears.  A  boy  was  there  not  yet  twenty.  He  had  been  a 
soldier  under  Lee  and  had  loved  a  woman  older  and  wiser  than 
himself.  One  day  he  told  her  all  and  she  laughed  in  his  beardless 
face,  a  laugh  that  went  deeper  than  any  word  of  cold  contempt  or 
stern  refusal.  He  was  too  young,  she  said.  He  knew  she  meant 
too  poor.  The  morning  after  the  interview,  while  it  was  yet  dusky 
and  dim  in  the  east,  a  firm,  set  face  was  turned  fair  to  the  south, 
and  James  Randolph  had  left  his  native  land  forever.  Among  the 
foremost  in  the  charge,  and  when  the  force  of  the  squadron  had 
spent  itself,  he  was  taken  up  dead  from  among  the  feet  of  the 
horses,  happier  than  he  had  been,  perhaps,  since  the  parting  months 
agone. 

One  was  there  because  a  life  of  peace  had  become  intolerable. 
Hardcastle,  a  born  soldier,  fought  for  the  love  of  the  strife;  Inge,  to 
better  his  fortune  ;  Sarsfield,  to  exorcise  a  memory  that  made  his 
sensitive  life  a  burden;  a  few  for  greed  and  gain;  not  anyone  for 
hatred  or  revenge. 

Mejia  loved  his  Americans,  and  had  done  a  General's  part  by 
them.  None  rode  finer  horses,  none  displayed  more  serviceable 
arms.  What  they  had  to  do  they  did,  so  terribly  that  none  ever 
rose  up  to  question  the  act.  On  guard  they  were  never  surprised; 
on  their  honor,  they  never  betrayed;  on  duty,  they  never  knew  an 
hour  of  rest;  on  the  for'ay,  they  kept  a  rank  no  stress  had  ever  yet 
destroyed,  and  in  the  fight,  when  others  halted  or  went  forward,  as 
those  who  grope,  these — grim,  silent,  impassible  as  fate — rode 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  397 

Straight  on;  resisted,  very  well;  verpowered,  still  very  well; 
cut  to  pieces — that  might  be.  Having  shaken  hands  with  life,  what 
meant  a  few  days  more  or  less  to  all  who  saw  the  end  approaching. 

Escobedo  had  surrounded  Matamoras  with  about  25,000  troops, 
not  good  troops,  however,  but  hard  to  dislodge  from  the  fortifica- 
tions in  which  they  had  encased  themselves.  To  get  out,  Mejia  had 
to  cut  his  way  through.  The  American  squadron  went  first.  There 
was  a  heavy  fog  that  had  blown  in  from  the  gulf  on  the  morning  of 
the  venture,  so  heavy,  indeed,  that  the  first  files  could  not  seethe 
third  files,  nor  the  third  the  fifth,  nor  the  Captain  his  Lieutenants  in 
their  places  behind  him. 

No  matter;  a  squadron  like  this  did  not  need  the  sunlight  in 
which  to  die. 

It  took  an  hour  of  furious  work  to  open  the  only  road  between 
Mejia  and  Monterey — between  a  massacre  as  ferocious  as  the  nature 
of  the  bandit,  Escobedo,  and  the  succor  of  Jeanningros'  Zouaves 
marching  twenty  leagues  in  twenty  hours  to  the  rescue.  Out  of 
seventy-two,  rank  and  file,  only  eleven  escaped  free  and  scathless. 
Afterward,  in  relating  the  story  of  the  escape,  General  Mejia 
remarked  sententiously  to  Governor  Reynolds : 

"  To  maintain  an  empire  it  is  necessary  only  for  a  score  of 
regiments,  such  as  the  squadron  that  charged  at  my  command  nine 
separate  times,  losing  always  and  always  closing  up." 

To-day  it  is  doubtful  if  any  man  knows  where  even  one  of  the 
heroes  lies  buried,  nor  aught  of  his  inner  life,  nor  anything  of  why 
or  how  he  died. 

"  So  much  the  leaden  dice  of  war 
Do  make  or  mar  of  character." 

In  the  height  of  the  tide  of  evacuation,  Maximilian  turned  his 
eyes  once  more  in  the  direction  of  the  colonists.  A  French  Baron, 
Sauvage  by  name,  and  an  Englishman  in  finance  and  education, 
obtained  from  the  Emperor  a  grant  of  land  as  large  about  as  the 
State  of  Delaware.  It  was  rare  and  valuable  land.  It  grew  India- 
rubber  trees  and  mahogany  trees.  It  was  in  the  tropics,  and  it  was 
fertile  beyond  all  comparison.  The  Tuspan  river  ran  through  the 
grant  diagonally  from  northwest  to  southeast.  It  had  a  seaport — 
Tampico — where  the  largest  vessels  might  ride  at  anchor,  and  where 
only  in  the  unusually  sickly  years  did  the  yellow  fever  come  at  all. 

Several  tribes  of  Indians  inhabited  this  section  of  the  Empire, 
mostly  ignorant  and  unknown  Indians,  yet  supposed  to  be  friendly 
and  well  disposed.  At  least  the  death  of  no  white  man  had  been 
laid  at  the  door  of  any  of  the  tribes,  probably  from  the  fact  that  no 
white  man  had  evef  been  among  them. 

Sauvage  dreaded  Indians  because  he  had  never  dea  with  them. 
He  was  a  cultivated  and  elegant  gentleman.  He  loved  to  linger 
long  at  dinner  and  late  over  the  wine,  to  take  his  ease  in  his  own 


398  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

way  and  to  protect  his  person.  He  wanted  a  partner  who,  used  to 
peril  and  privation,  would  not  object  to  the  life  of  a  pioneer. 
Shelby  was  recommended.  Freighting  was  no  longer  pleasant  or 
profitable.  Concentrated  now  principally  in  the  cities,  the  French 
did  not  attempt  to  patrol  the  roads  nor  to  afford  protection  to  those 
who  lived  away  from  he  garrisoned  towns  and  who  needed  protec- 
tion. As  a  consequence,  Shelby  and  his  partner,  Major  McMurty, 
disposed  of  such  stock  as  was  left  to  them  after  the  rigors  of  the 
rainy  season  and  cast  about  for  other  work  neither  so  difficult  nor 
so  uncertain. 

Shelby  met  Sauvage,  and  when  the  interview  was  over  a  scheme 
of  colonization  was  formed  which  needed  only  time  to  have  added 
to  the  Empire  a  bulwark  that  might  have  proved  impregnable.  Sur- 
veyors under  the  charge  of  Major  R.  J.  Lawrence,  once  a  resident 
of  Kansas  City,  were  dispatched  immediately  to  the  granted  lands. 
A  railroad  from  Tampico  to  Vera  Cruz  was  projected  and  a  subsidy 
at  the  rate  of  $20,000  per  mile  pledged  by  the  Emperor.  With 
Shelby  to  plan  was  to  execute.  Two  hundred  men  were  employed 
before  the  ink  of  the  alliance  between  himself  and  Sauvage  was 
scarcely  dry.  Taking  passage  in  a  rickety  schooner  to  Havana, 
Shelby  bought  a  seaworthy  sail-boat  there  and  loaded  the  boat  at 
once  with  American  plows,  harrows,  railroad  tools  of  all  kinds,  and 
staple  provisions  enough  for  a  summer's  campaign.  At  the  same 
time  he  also  flooded  Texas  and  Arkansas  with  his  circulars  setting 
forth  the  advantages  of  the  Tuspan  country,  its  immense  resources, 
the  benefits  a  colonist  might  receive  from  a  location  there,  and  giving 
also  the  nature  and  quality  of  the  soil,  its  products  and  the  average 
price  per  acre  under  the  Imperial  decree  confirming  the  grant.  The 
circular  soon  begot  an  interestthat  was  intense.  Twenty  familiesin  a 
neighborhood  would  unite  and  send  an  agent  forward  to  investigate 
the  prospects  of  the  colony.  Meanwhile  the  railroad  was  com- 
menced. From  Havana  Shelby  went  to  Vera  Cruz,  where  he  pur- 
chased another  schooner  belonging  to  the  French  fleet  of  observa- 
tion in  the  harbor.  Bazaine  was  in  the  city  when  he  arrived  in 
port.  He  went  straight  up  to  his  hotel  and  spoke  to  him  thus: 

"Marshal,  we  have  taken  upon  our  hands  much  work.  "We 
have  farming  implements  of  all  kinds,  but  we  have  no  guns.  Give 
us  arms  and  ammunition.  Your  army  of  occupation  has  recently 
been  supplied  with  Chassepots,  and  it  is  not  your  intention  to  take 
your  old  muskets  back  to  France.  Some  you  will  sell,  some  you 
will  destroy,  and  some  you  will  give  away.  Give  me,  therefore, 
five  hundred  of  your  most  serviceable,  and  ball  cartridges  enough 
for  a  six  month's  siege,  and  when  you  hear  of  our  colony  again  you 
will  hear  of  a  place  as  promising  as  the  scheme  of  your  Emperor 
in  Africa." 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  399 

Bazaine  listened  to  this  frank  volubility  as  one  does  to  some- 
thing he  has  but  rarely  heard  in  his  life,  smiled,  shrugged  his 
shoulders,  but  gave  the  order  just  the  same.  Before  the  sun  set, 
Shelby  was  sailing  out  from  the  harbor  and  past  the  dark  battle- 
ments of  San  Juan  d'Ulloa,  the  owner  of  half  a  thousand  elegant 
guns,  a  great  store  of  ammunition,  and  a  faith  in  the  future  that 
amounted  with  him  to  an  inspiration. 

The  Americans  flocked  to  him  from  every  direction.  His  name 
and  his  fame  seemed  a  talisman.  As  fast  as  they  arrived  he  armed 
them,  and  it  was  well  that  he  did  so.  A  tribe  of  Indians,  the  Tolucas, 
owning  lands  directly  on  the  northern  boundary  of  the  grant,  grew 
jealous  of  a  sudden  at  the  growing  colony,  and  sought  to  extermi- 
nate it.  There  were  bad  Mexicans  among  them  who  did  the  schem- 
ing and  the  plotting,  and  one  rainy  night  a  foray  of  eleven  hundred 
dashed  down  upon  the  outposts.  Shelby  was  with  his  surveying 
party  at  the  time,  a  little  detachment  scarcely  thirty  strong.  These 
fortified  themselves  behind  a  breastwork  of  logs,  and  fought  until 
the  settlement  could  be  aroused.  When  the  reinforcements  were 
all  up,  Shelby  massed  them  compactly  together,  and  dashed  down 
upon  the  invaders.  They  fought  badly,  and  soon  broke  and  fled. 
For  thirty  long  and  weary  miles  he  followed  them  through  swamp 
and  chaparal,  over  ravines  and  rivers,  by  day  and  by  night,  killing 
what  came  to  him,  sparing  naught  that  fell  in  his  way.  Weary, 
the  men  declared  the  work  done  well  enough.  He  ordered  them 
forward  fiercely. 

"  What,"  he  cried  out,  "  is  the  necessity  of  doing  to-morrow  or 
the  next  day  what  could  be  so  well  done  to-day?  The  colony  is 
young,  it  is  hated,  it  has  been  in  perpetual  ambush;  it  must  have 
over  it  a  mantle  of  blood.  Forward,  and  spare  not." 

The  blow  dealt  the  Tolucas  was  a  terrible  one,  but  it  was  neces- 
sary. Thereafter  they  traded  in  peace  with  the  whites,  and  main- 
tained the  alliance  unbroken  until  the  colony  itself  was  destroyed, 
and  the  Americans  driven  out  from  all  part  or  lot  in  the  country. 

Through  no  fault  of  any  American  there,  however,  the  colony 
did  not  live.  Shelby  did  the  work  of  a  giant.  He  was  alcalde, 
magistrate,  patriarch,  contractor,  surveyor,  physician,  interpreter, 
soldier,  lawgiver,  mediator,  benefactor,  autocrat,  everything.  All 
things  that  were  possible  were  accomplished.  Settlers  came  in  and 
had  lands  given  them.  The  schooners  were  loaded  with  tropical 
fruits  and  sent  to  New  Orleans.  When  they  returned  they  were 
filled  with  emigrants.  The  railroad  took  unto  itself  length  and 
breadth  and  crept  slowly  through  morass  and  jungle  toward  Vcra 
Cruz.  Disease  also  decimated.  The  rank  forests,  the  tropical  sun. 
the  hardships  and  exposures  of  the  new  and  laborious  life  told 
heavily  against  the  men,  and  many  whom  the  bullet  had  spared 
the  fever  finished.  The  living,  however,  took  the  place  of  the 
dead,  and  the  work  went  on. 


400  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

One  day  news  came  that  the  French  garrison  at  Correzetla  had 
marched  at  sunset  for  the  Capital.  Of  all  the  good  five  hundred  foot 
and  horse  not  even  so  much  as  a  saber  or  a  sabertash  remained  to 
hold  the  mountain  line  between  the  guerrillas  of  the  south  and  the 
little  handful  of  pioneers  hewing  away  in  the  wilderness  of  mahog- 
any, toiling  by  day  and  standing  guard  by  night.  It  could  not  be 
far  to  the  end.  A.  sudden  irruption  of  robbers,  quite  two  thousand 
strong,  poured  through  the  gaps  in  the  broken  and  higher  country, 
and  drove  rapidly  in  all  the  outlying  posts  along  the  frontier.  If 
any  settler  there,  tarrying  late  to  save  from  the  wreck  whatever  was 
valuable  or  dear  to  him,  fell  into  their  hands,  it  was  a  rope,  a  dog's 
death,  and  a  grave  that  hid  in  it  neither  coffin  nor  shroud.  Death 
to  the  Gringo  came  on  every  breeze  that  swept  to  the  sea. 

Shelby  knew  that  the  beginning  of  the  end  was  at  hand,  and  that 
he  had  great  need  to  bring  back  from  the  overthrow  all  that  was 
worth  a  stroke  for  rescue.  He  met  this  last  danger  as  he  had  met 
all  others,  with  arms  in  his  hand.  He  massed  once  more  his  mov- 
able columns  and  fought  as  he  fell  back  in  front  of  his  sick  and  his 
helpless,  dealing  such  blows  as  became  one  who  fel  that  the  sun  had 
been  turned  away  from  him,  and  that  thereafter  it  would  be  neither 
a  cloudless  sky  nor  a  peaceful  twilight. 

The  citizens  rose  in  the  town  of  Tampico  when  it  was  knpwn 
that  the  French  had  retired,  and  seized  upon  the  schooners  at 
anchor  off  the  bar.  Some  among  their  crew  made  battle  and  died 
in  vain  and  in  discharge  of  a  duty  that  had  neither  country  nor  cause 
to  remember  and  reward  it.  When  the  vessels  were  burned  their 
corpses  were  thrown  headlong  into  the  sea.  Nothing  survived  the 
inundation.  The  fields  were  all  laid  waste  the  habitations  were  all 
pillaged  and  destroyed,  what  remained  of  the  farming  implements 
were  broken  to  pieces,  the  luxuriant  growth  of  the  tropics  sprang  up 
in  a  night  as  it  were,  and  hid  the  work  of  the  devoted  colonists. 
There  was  a  moment  of  savage  exultation  over  the  wreck  and  the 
ruin  of  the  beautiful  valley  and  to-day  all  the  magnificent  land 
watered  by  the  Tuspan  river  lies  out  under  the  sun,  a  waste  place 
and  a  wilderness.  Worn  by  long  marching  and  fighting,  the  sur- 
vivors found  refuge  at  last  in  Cordova,  homeless,  penniless,  and 
strangers  in  a  strange  land. 

And  death  came,  too,  to  one  among  the  exiles  who  had  cast  in 
his  lot  in  their  midst  as  a  Christian  hero,  and  who  had  fought  the 
fight  the  hero  always  fights.  Henry  Watkins  Allen,  ex-Governor 
of  Louisiana,  and  a  general  of  brigade  in  the  Confederate  army,  was 
carried  up  from  the  lowlands  of  the  Gulf  to  die.  Shattered  by 
wounds,  and  broken  in  health  and  fortune,  he  bore  so  bravely  up 
that  none  knew,  not  even  those  who  knew  him  best,  how  weak  was 
the  poor  tried  frame,  and  how  clearly  outlined  to  his  own  vision 
was  the  invisible  angel  of  the  somber  wings. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  401 

Selected  by  the  Emperor  to  publish  a  newspaper  in  the  English 
language  and  in  the  interest  of  the  Empire  and  colonization,  he  had 
founded  the  Mexican  Times,  and  had  labored  faithfully  for  the 
stability  of  the  Government  and  the  development  of  its  mineral 
resources.  Singularly  gentle  and  lovable  for  one  so  desperately 
brave,  he  gave  his  whole  time  to  the  labors  of  his  position,  and  toiled 
faithfully  on  in  the  work  taken  upon  his  hands  to  do.  The  Ameri- 
cans looked  upon  him  as  an  adviser  and  friend.  Marshal  Bazaine 
counseled  with  him  and  bestowed  upon  him  his  confidence,  and 
Maximilian  trusted  him  as  he  would  a  household  officer  or  aide. 
His  charities  were  unostentatious  and  manifold.  He  delighted  in 
giving  his  scanty  means,  and  in  keepiDg  from  his  left  hand  what 
his  right  hand  contributed.  He  wrote  boldly  and  to  the  point.  In 
the  army  his  record  had  been  one  of  extraordinary  daring  in  a  corps 
where  all  had  been  brave.  Badly  wounded  at  Shiloh,  he  kept  his 
saddle  until  the  battle  was  over,  and  led  his  troops  the  long  day 
through,  as  though  impervious  to  human  weakness  or  physical 
pain.  Later,  at  Baton  Rouge,  under  Breckenridge,  he  had  made  a 
charge  upon  a  battery,  the  fame  of  which  filled  the  West.  The  guns 
were  taken  in  the  terrible  contest,  but  Allen  was  lifted  up  from 
among  his  horse's  feet,  maimed,  inert,  speechless,  almost  dead. 
Three  bullets  from  a  canister  shot  had  penetrated  both  legs,  shat- 
tered the  bones  of  one  of  them,  and  wounded  him  so  desperately 
that  for  five  months  it  was  an  almost  hopeless  struggle  for  life.  To 
the  last  he  was  a  sufferer  and  an  invalid. 

Having  occasion  to  visit  Vera  Cruz  on  business  during  the  height 
of  the  yellow  fever,  the  hand  of  death  was  laid  gently  and  silently 
upon  him,  and  he  returned  to  the  City  of  Mexico  to  die.  The  con- 
flict did  not  last  long.  What  could  the  emaciated  soldier  do  in  the 
grasp  of  one  so  relentless  and  so  fierce?  The  old  wound  bled 
afresh,  and  the  old  weakness  had  never  left  him.  Bazaine  sent  to 
him  his  own  physician.  All  that  skill  could  do  was  done;  all  that 
tenderness  or  affection  could  suggest  was  performed.  In  vain.  The 
good  man  died  as  he  had  lived,  in  peace  with  the  world  and  with 
the  good  God  who  had  afflicted  him  sorely  in  His  own  wise  way,  and 
who  carried  his  soul  straight  to  heaven. 

The  work  of  evacuation  went  steadily  on.  As  the  French 
retired,  city  after  city  received  the  Liberals  with  many  demonstra- 
tions of  joy.  In  some  of  these,  also,  those  Mexicans  who  had  sym- 
pathized with  the  Empire  were  cruelly  treated;  in  others  they  were 
imprisoned  or  shot*.  The  armies  of  Juarez  were  recruited  by  a  levy 
en  masse  of  all  capable  of  bearing  arms  in  the  territory  overrun  by 
his  ragamuffins.  American  sympathy  was  not  wanting.  Whatever 
in  the  way  of  arms,  ammunition,  supplies  or  clothing  was  needed, 
was  bountifully  supplied.  A  picked  detachment  of  Californians, 
three  squadrons  strong,  formed  a  desperate  bodyguard  for.  the 


402  SHELB\  'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO  ; 

President.  Unquestioning  as  fate,  they  did  his  bidding  even  to 
torture  and  to  massacre.  They  were  feared  and  hated  of  the 
nation. 

A  blow  fell  now,  an/1  fell  suddenly,  upon  the  colony  of  Carlota. 
The  name  itself,  of  all  names,  was  the  most  fatal,  and  it  appeased 
somewhat  the  fierce  hatred  of  the  born  robbers  and  traitors,  who 
hated  everything  noble  or  true,  to  plunder  all  who  were  unresislirg 
or  defenseless,  and  who  had  over  them  the  blessing  of  the  stricken 
woman  of  Miramar. 

In  a  night  the  labor  and  toil  of  a  long  year  were  utterly  broken 
up  and  destroyed.  A  band  of  freebooters  from  the  mountains, 
nearly  two  thousand  strong,  poured  down  through  the  gap  the 
French  had  left  unprotected,  and  the  pillage  was  utter  and  com- 
plete. Quite  an  hundred  colonists,  males  all  of  them,  were  cap- 
tured in  the  night  and  marched  far  into  the  gloomy  places  and 
recesses  of  the  mountains.  Their  sufferings  were  terrible.  Bare- 
footed, days  without  food,  beaten  with  sabers  and  pricked  with 
lances,  some  few  died  and  the  rest,  after  a  month  of  barbarous  cap- 
tivity, made  their  way  back  to  the  French  lines,  scarcely  more  than 
alive.  All  had  been  robbed,  many  had  been  stripped.  Those  who 
survived  the  blow  and  the  thrust  were  but  few — those  who  were 
naked  were  the  most  numerous. 

The  blow  finished  the  colony.  The  farming  implements  were 
destroyed,  the  stock  was  slaughtered  in  the  fields,  the  cabins  were 
burnt,  the  growing  crops  beaten  down  under  the  feet  of  the  horses, 
and  what  the  hurrying  cavalry  spared  the  winds  and  the  torches 
finished.  Nobody  pitied  the  Americans.  In  the  upheaval  of  all 
stable  things,  and  in  the  ever-increasing  contraction  of  the  Imperial 
circle,  what  mattered  a  robbery  more  or  less.  The  days  of  the  col- 
onists were  numbered  when  the  French  vessel  that  bore  Castelnau 
anchored  off  the  mole  at  Vera  Cruz. 

Still,  however,  the  Americans  were  here  and  there  in  demand. 
An  English  company  owning  valuable  silver  mines  at  Pachuca,  felt 
the  terror  of  the  French  withdrawal,  and  sought  for  something 
stronger  to  rely  upon  than  Mexican  manhood.  Colonel  Robert  C. 
Wood  was  in  the  City  of  Mexico  at  the  time  and  was  called  upon  to 
take  command  of  the  Company's  forces.  These  were  peons  and 
miners.  He  recruited  in  addition  a  dozen  Americans  and  went 
down  to  Pachuca  to  look  after  the  silver  deposits  entrusted  to  his 
keeping.  Vast  masses  of  enormously  rich  ore,  cut  off  from  the 
seaports  because  of  the  revolution  going  on  in  tne  land,  were  piled 
up  in  huge  heaps  awaiting  shipment  Wood  took  a  look  at  it  all 
and  turned  to  its  owner,  an  old  Englishman,  nervous  but  brave: 

"  How  much  is  it  all  worth?" 

"  Well  on  to  a  million." 

"  They  will  come  for  it  strong,  then— the  robbers?" 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAP  OF  THE  WAR.  403 

"  Ko,  not  for  the  silver  ore,  but  fora  ransom.  I  could  stand  one, 
or  two,  or  three  among  the  chiefs  and  pay  them  all  well,  but  up 
among  the  hundreds  it  is  impossible." 

Wood  took  command  and  went  to  fortifying.  The  third  day  he 
found  himself  surrounded.  A  summons  to  surrender  came.  Before 
firing  a  gun  a  Mexican  always  seeks  to  arrange  a  capitulation. 
Palaver,  from  his  own  strong  term  palabres,  means  after  all  nothing 
but  words,  words,  words,  in  the  rugged  old  Spanish.  Since  the  com- 
mander was  not  influenced  to  surrender,  he  had  but  one  thing  to  do 
— he  fought  like  a  tiger.  In  the  end  the  first  robber  chief  was  driven 
away,  for  the  Englishman's  habitation  was  a  fort,  an  arsenal,  a  store- 
house, and  a  silver  mine .  Others  advanced  to  the  attack,  but  Wood 
held  on  for  three  weeks,  fighting  every  day,  and  keeping  his  own 
right  royally.  The  siege  might  have  lasted  longer,  but  Mendez,  an 
Imperial  Mexican,  swept  down  from  the  Capitol  and  drove  before 
him  like  chaff  the  robber  bands,  preying  alike  upoa  the  innocent  and 
the  guilty.  Colonel  Wood  marched  out  with  the  honors  of  war,  the 
Englishman  made  his  voyage  sure  to  Vera  Cruz  ;  there  was  no  more 
fighting  about  Pachuca,  but  there  was  no  more  silver  ore  as  well. 

As  the  news  of  reverse  after  reverse  came  to  Maximilian,  he 
turned  once  more  his  despairing  eyes  toward  the  Americans,  and 
sought  among  them  for  the  nucleus  of  a  corps.  He  sent  for  Shelby, 
who  was  at'Cordova,  and  had  him  to  come  post  haste.  Feeling  that 
it  was  too  late,  Shelby  yet  answered  the  summons  with  alacrity,  and 
presented  himself  to  the  Emperor. 

The  interview  was  brief,  but,  brief  as  it  was,  it  was  almost  sad. 

"  Kow  many  Americans  are  yet  in  the  country?  "  the  Emperor 
inquired. 

"Not  enough  for  a  corporal's  guard,"  was  Shelby's  frank  reply; 
"  and  the  few  who  are  left  can  not  be  utilized.  Your  Majesty  has 
put  off  too  long  the  inauguration  of  a  plan  which,  while  it  might 
not  have  given  you  as  many  soldiers  as  France,  would  at  least  have 
restored  a  formidable  rallying  point,  and  stayed  for  a  time  the 
tide  of  reverses  that  is  rising  all  over  Mexico.  I  don't  know  of  200 
effective  men  among  my  countrymen  who  could  be  got  together 
before  the  evacuation  is  complete." 

"I  need  20,000,"  the  Emperor  rejoined,  as  one  who  talked 
mechanically. 

"Yes,  40,000.  Of  all  the  Imperial  regiments  in  your  service, 
you  cannot  count  upon  one  that  will  stand  fast  to  the  end.  What 
are  the  tidings?  In  Gaudalajara,  desertion;  in  Colima,  desertion; 
in  Durango,  Zecatecas,  San  Luis  Potosi,  Matehuala — it  is  nothing 
but  desertion,  desertion.  As  I  came  in  1  .saw  the  Regiment  of  the 
Empress  marching  out.  You  will  pardon  me  if  I  speak  the  truth, 
but  as  devoted  as  that  Regiment  should  be,  I  would  call  upon  your 
Majesty  to  beware  of  it.  When  the  need  is  greatest  its  loyalty  will 


404  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

bo  most  iii  doubt.  Keep  with  you  constantly  all  the  household  troops 
that  yet  belong  to  the  Empire.  Do  not  waste  them  in  doubtful  bat- 
tles. Do  not  divide  them  among  important  towns.  The  hour  is  at 
hand  when  instead  of  numbers  you  will  have  to  rely  upon  devotion. 
I  am  but  as  one  man,  but  whatever  a  single  subject  can  do  that  thing 
shall  be  done  to  the  utmost." 

Tii3  E.nperor  mused  some  little  time  in  silence.  When  he  spoke 
again  it  was  in  a  voice  so  sad  as  to  be  almost  pitiful. 

"  It  is  so  refreshing  to  hear  the  truth,"  he  said,  "and  I  feel  that 
yo-i  have  told  it  to  me  as  one  who  neither  fears  nor  flatters.  Take 
this  in  parting,  and  remember  that  circumstances  never  render  impos- 
sible the  right  to  die  for  a  great  principle." 

As  the  Emperor  spoke  he  detached  the  golden  cross  of  the  Order 
of  Guadalupe  from  his  breast  and  gave  it  into  the  hands  of  Shelby. 

He  has  it  yet,  a  precious  souvenir — the  sole  memento  of  a  part- 
ing that  for  both  was  the  last  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

IT  was  in  these  last  days  of  the  Empire  that  General  J.  A.  Early, 
a  noble  Southern  Tacitus,  came  over  from  Havana  to  Mexico.  His 
journey  from  the  United  States  had  been  a  romantic  one.  After 
Lee's  surrender  at  Appomattox  Court  House,  General  Early,  with 
the  keen  eye  of  a  thorough  sportsman,  had  selected  a  horse  in  Vir- 
ginia that  in  everyway  suited  his  ideas  of  a  horse.  Above  all 
thi  ngs  he  wanted  one  full  of  action  and  endurance.  The  ride  before 
him  was  from  ocean  to  ocean,  as  it  were,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific.  Having  on  nothing  that  would  stand  in  the  shape  of  the 
uniform  of  a  soldier,  and  a  good  enough  looking  citizen  in  all 
except  the  bronze  of  his  rough  campaigning,  he  rode  through  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina,  through  Tennessee  and  Mississippi,  into 
Arkansas,  and  across  it  into  Texas,  and  on  through  outlying  bands 
of  guerrillas  and  robbers  to  the  port  of  Matamoras.  Sometimes  he 
went  hungry  for  bread.  For  days  together  he  had  no  shelter.  He 
spoke  but  two  words  of  Spanish,  and  those  contemptuously, 
because  the  words  themselves  expressed  so  aptly  the  Mexican's  idea 
of  eternal  procrastination.  He  got  along  somehow,  however,  and 
made  his  appearance  to  the  few  who  were  left  among  the  Mexicans, 
as  full  of  the  fire  of  war,  and  as  indifferent  to  either  extreme  of 
fortune  as  when  amid  the  echoes  of  the  long  and  perilous  battle  he 
had  seen  victory  come  and  go,  at  one  time  his  hand  maiden,  at 
another  his  Delilah. 

General  Early,  even  then,  had  written  his  book  reviewing  the 
military  campaigns  of  Sheridan  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia.  Some 
articles  had  appeared  in  the  American  press  not  exactly  between 
them,  but  about  them.  Each  had  written  freely  of  each.  Each 
was  a  man  who  followed  up  his  words,  if  need  be,  with  blows.  He 
disliked  skirmishing  very  much,  that  was  only  skirmishing,  so  he 
concluded  to  go  over  to  Havana  and  challenge  Sheridan.  He 
argued  that  Sheridan  was  an  Irishman,  that  he  probably  would  not 
be  averse  to  the  operations  of  the  code,  that  he  was  personally 
braveand  that  a  shot  or  two  between  them,  while  it  might  not 
settle  a  single  point  at  issue,  would  at  least  clear  up  the 
atmosphere  of  the  correspondence  a  little,  and  round  off  some  of 
the  angularities  of  the  two  antagonistic  natures.  He  was  over- 
psrsuaded,  however,  and  did  not  send  the  challenge.  He  returned 
to  Canada,  published  his  book,  told  some  very  necessary  yet  unpal- 
atable truths,  and  has  remaiced  on  duty  ever  since,  a  watchful  sen- 
tinel over  Southern  honor  as  amplified  and  exemplified  by  Southern 
history. 

405 


406  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

Foreigners  of  all  nations  now  began  to  put  each  his  house  in 
order.  None  had  faith  in  the  Empire,  none  believed  that  it  could 
survive  the  shock  of  the  French  withdrawal  three  months.  Max- 
imilian had  no  money.  He  was  suspicioned  of  the  church.  The 
Archbishop  was  his  enemy.  His  wife,  really  and  truly  his  better 
half,  his  noble,  self  sacrificing,  heroic  Carlota,  was  dead  to  him,  to 
his  love,  to  whatever  of  triumph  or  despair  the  future  had  in  store 
for  him.  The  dark  hour  was  upon  Saul.  Shrouded  in  the  mental 
blackness  of  a  great  darkness,  Maximilian,  as  he  always  did  when 
he  was  hard  hunted,  fled  to  Cuernavaca.  He  remained  three  days, 
the  prey  of  conflicting  emotions,  and  the  one  isolated  and  deso- 
late figure  in  a  land  that  had  in  it  the  birds  and  the  odors  of  Para- 
dise. 

When  he  returned  he  had  taken  upon  himself  a  sudden  resolution. 
He  would  leave  the  country,  too,  he  had  said  to  some  of  his  nearest 
followers.  The  Emperor  Napoleon  had  urged  him  to  retire  with  the 
French.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  had  done  the  same,  so  had  the 
Queen  of  England,  so  had  Bazaine,  so  had  everybody,  who  knew  how 
the  scholar,  and  the  gentleman  would  at  last  be  destroyed  in  a  contact 
with  brute  force,  ignorance  and  cupidity.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
whatever  of  the  Emperor's  intention  at  this  time  to  abandon  Mexico. 
The  condition  of  his  wife's  health,  the  attitude  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  his  empty  treasury,  the  mutiny  and  disaffection  among  his 
native  regiments,  the  baseness,  corruption  and  falsehood  on  every 
hand,  so  impressed  him  at  last  that  a  great  reaction  came  and  a 
great  disgust  for  the  people  whose  cause  he  had  espoused  and 
whose  country  he  had  endeavored  to  pacify  and  redeem.  He  retired 
suddenly  to  Orizava,  a  city  two  days'  journey  toward  Vera  Cruz. 
The  movement  was  ominous,  and  a  great  fear  fell  upon  those  among 
the  Imperialists  who  had  yet  the  manhood  and  the  decency  to  thus 
preserve  the  semblance  of  affection.  Generals  Miramon  and 
Marquez  went  to  him  at  once.  Long  consultations  followed,  and 
the  result  arrived  at  was  a  decree  on  the  part  of  the  Emperor 
convoking  a  national  Congress,  on  the  most  ample  and  liberal 
basis,  wherein  all  political  parties  might  participate.  On  the  12th 
of  October,  1866,  the  Emperor  returned  to  Pueblo,  one  day's 
journey  toward  the  Capital,  one  day's  journey  farther  from  the  soa- 
coast.  The  Imperialists  again  took  courage.  On  the  5th  of  January, 
1867,  the  Emperor  returned  again  to  Mexico. 

During  his  stay  in  Orizaba,  his  Majesty  had  a  long  and  confi- 
dential interview  with  Governor  Thomas  C.  Reynolds.  He  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  consulting  him  upon  various  occasions,  and  had 
in  more  than  one  instance  followed  the  advice  given  by  this  remark- 
able, clearh-eaded  and  conscientious  man.  To  Reynolds  he 
unbosomed  himself  fully  and  without  reserve.  He  dwelt  upon  the 
condition  of  the  country  and  the  apparent  hopelessness  of  the  effort 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  407 

he  was  making  to  maintain  himself .  He  complained  that  he  had  no 
advisers  who  understood  the  nature  of  the  surroundings,  and  who 
could  give  a  sensible  and  patriotic  reason  for  anything.  He  wanted 
sympathy  really  as  much  as  he  did  advice,  and  Reynolds  gave  him 
both.  He  urged  upon  him  the  necessity  of  remaining  in  Mexico 
and  of  dying,  if  needs  be,  for  his  kingdom  and  his  crown.  Reynolds 
also  recalled  briefly  the  history  of  his  ancestors,  the  names  great 
among  the  greatest  of  his  race,  and  reminded  him  as  delicately  as 
possible,  yet  very  firmly,  that,  Hapsburg  as  he  was,  he  had  need  but 
of  two  things — to  perish  or  succeed.  There  was  a  sacred  duty  he 
owed,  first  to  his  name,  and  then  to  those  other  young  and  daunt- 
less spirits  who  had  followed  him  across  the  ocean  and  who  could 
not  be  abandoned  to  be  destroyed.  Men  of  the  Hapsburg  race 
either  conquered  destiny  or  were  conquered  by  it  in  war  harness  and 
in  front  of  the  fight.  Standing  or  falling,  he  should  head  his  armies 
and  trust  himself,  as  his  ancestors  had  done  before  him,  to  the  God 
of  battles  and  the  sword. 

Maximilian  returned  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  as  has  been  already 
stated,  on  the  5th  of  January,  1866.  On  the  6th  of  February,  of  the 
same  year,  the  French  troops  left  the  Capital.  The  Congress  pro- 
vided for  at  the  Council  of  Orizava,  owing  to  the  deplorable  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  did  not  meet.  War  was  in  the  land,  and  rapine, 
and  the  slaughter  of  those  who  did  not  resist,  nor  yet  had  any  arms 
•in  their  hands.  Bazaine,  the  night  before  the  evacuation  of  the 
city,  sought  a  private  interview  with  the  Emperor,  and  had  it 
granted  far  into  the  morning.  As  a  soldier  he  reasoned  with  the 
Emperor  simply  as  a  soldier.  Treating  the  whole  question  at  issue 
as  one  of  men  and  means  entirely,  he  demonstrated  how  futile  all 
resistance  would  be,  and  how  utterly  impossible  it  was  to  maintaia 
an  alien  government  without  an  army.  Having  his  mind  made  up, 
however,  with  the  fixedness  of  desperation,  Maximilian  took  no 
heed  of  Bazaine's  inexorable  logic.  The  two  parted  coldly,  never 
to  meet  again,  but  not  as  enemies.  The  Marshal  pitied  the  Emperor, 
the  Emperor  smiled  upon  the  Marshal.  In  the  presence  of  death, 
the  man  who  can  smile  and  forgive  upon  earth,  is  already  forgiven 
in  heaven. 

If  there  were  any  Mexicans  now  in  the  Empire  really  devoted  to 
Maximilian  they  made  no  effort  to  sustain  him.  As  the  French 
lines  receded  the  lines  of  Juarez  moved  up  and  occupied  every- 
thing. Regiments  deserted  in  a  body,  garrisoned  towns  were  given 
up,  the  native  troops  would  not  fight  agains  native  troops — all  cohe- 
siveness  was  gone.  There  was  no  discipline  ;  it  was  dark  in  every 
quarter,  and  the  time  for  giants  to  arise  was  near  at  hand.  In  this 
condition  of  the  country  Maximilian  took  the  field. 

From  the  first  he  led  a  forlorn  hope.  The  whole  Imperial  fabric, 
unsupported  by  French  bayonets,  literally  fell  to  pieces.  Miramqn 


408  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

was  defeated  in  Durango;  Mendez  had  to  retreat  from  the  South; 
Marquez  lost  Pueblo  and  the  outlying  towns  about  the  Capital; 
from  a  force  amounting  to  fifty  thousand  men  on  paper,  Maximilian, 
all  told,  and  when  every  General  and  every  detachment  was  in  at 
Queretaro,  could  not,  if  he  had  tried,  have  counted  nine  thousand 
soldiers,  who  had  faith  in  the  destiny  of  the  Empire,  and  who  knew 
how  to  die  for  it. 

On  the  13th  of  February,  1866,  the  Emperor,  leaving  Marquez 
in  command  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  concluded  to  take  command  of 
the  army  in  the  field.  Accordingly ,  on  that  day  he  marched  north- 
ward.  The  force  under  him  numbered  barely  eighteen  hundred, 
and  was  composed  equally  of  the  three  arms,  infantry,  cavalry  and 
artillery. 

The  first  day's  march  brought  slight  skirmishing;  on  the  fourth 
day  the  skirmishing  grew  suddenly  heavy  and  hot;  the  Hungarians 
of  his  body  guard  made  a  splendid  charge,  the  road  was  tolerably 
well  cleared,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  19th,  amid  the  ringing  of 
innumerable  bells  and  the  noisy  demonstrations  of  a  vast  multitude, 
the  Emperor  entered  the  city  of  Queretaro. 

It  was  an  historical  city,  this  of  Queretaro.  Fifty-seven  leagues 
from  the  Capital,  it  had  been  founded  about  the  year  1445,  and  was 
a  part  of  the  empire  of  Montezuma  I.  A  Spaniard,  Fernando  de 
Tapia,  conquered  it  in  1531,  and  conferred  upon  it  the  name  of 
Santiago  de  Queretaro— or,  in  the  Tarasco  idiom,  a  place  where  ball* 
was  played. 

Ominous  christening!  The  ball  now  about  to  be  played  was  with 
those  iron  ones  men  play  with  death  when  death,  must  win. 

The  population  of  Queretaro  was  fully  fifty  thousand,  and  dur- 
ing the  war  with  the  United  States  the  Mexican  Congress  held  its 
sessions  there.  Afterward,  in  1848,  the  commissioners  of  peace 
assembled  there  and  signed  the  famous  treaty  of  Hidalgo. 

The  Emperor  was  no  soldier,  and  yet  he  believed  some  fortifica- 
tions were  necessary  to  protect  his  inferior  force  from  the  greatly 
superior  force  he  knew  was  rushing  to  overwhelm  him  from  every 
portion  of  the  Empire.  From  the  1st  of  March  to  the  16th  he  worked 
like  a  grenadier  He  rarely  slept.  He  ate  as  the  men  did,  fared 
alike  with  his  soldiers,  he  appealed  to  them  as  a  comrade,  led  them 
forward  as  a  king,  and  was  beloved  beyond  all. 

On  the  14th  of  March  General  Escobedo,  at  the  head  of  thirty 
thousand  Mexicans,  moved  down  from  the  north  and  invested  the 
city.  Here  was  one  who  had  never  known  an  hour  of  mercy;  who 
had  iron  gray  hair;  who  was  angular  and  gaunt;  who  lived  much 
alone,  suspicioned  all  men;  who  had  been  known  to  have  rivals  poi- 
soned; who  hated  the  French  worse  than  the  Austrians,  the  Ameri- 
cans worse  than  the  French,  and  who  was  a  coward. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  409 

On  the  14th  of  March  the  city  was  attacked — thirty  thousand 
against  nine  thousand.  All  day  long  the  Emperor  was  under  fire. 
At  night  he  took  no  rest.  Brave,  modest,  gentle,  no  exposure  was 
too  great  for  him — no  personal  hazard  accounted  a  feather's  weight 
in  the  scale  of  the  day's  doubtful  fortunes. 

Not  yet  satisfied  of  his  grip  upon  the  town,  Escobedo  retired  worst- 
ed. The  grim  lines  of  circumvallation,  however,  grew  stronger  day 
by  day,  and  to  the  siege  of  the  place  a  tide  of  soldiers  poured  con- 
stantly in,  armed  in  all  fashions,  ragged,  hungry  for  food,  ravenous. 
It  mattered  not  for  guns.  They  had  strength,  and  they  could  dig  to 
keep  well  at  bay  those  who,  sooner  or  later,  had  to  come  out  or 
starve. 

Succor  was  needed,  and  on  the  22d  of  March,  at  the  head  of  one 
thousand  mounted  men.  General  Marquez,  at  the  command  of  the 
Emperor,  started  to  the  Capital.  He  was  to  procure  men,  provisions 
and  munitions  of  war,  aad^he  was  to  return  within  fifteen  days.  All 
his  orders  were  explicit.  If  he  had  not  men  enough  to  garrison  and 
defend  the  City  of  Mexico,  and  also  to  increase  his  force  sufficiently 
for  tae  defense  of  Qucretaro,  then  he  was  to  abandon  Mexico,  and 
return  with  every  soldier  and  every  round  of  ammunition  he  could 
raise  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Emperor.  The  Emperor  also  con- 
ferred upon  Marquez  the  title  of  Lugar  Teniente,  or  what  is  usually 
translated  as  meaning  Lieutenant  General.  It  does  mean  this,  and 
nrich  more.  Such  an  officer,  in  the  absence  of  the  sovereign,  takes 
his  place,  and  is  recognized  and  obeyed  accordingly.  He  has  the 
absolute  power  of  life  and  death  in  his  hands,  can  declare  war,  appro- 
priate money,  make  treaties,  act,  in  short,  as  an  absolute  and  unques- 
tioned autocrat,  and  then  in  the  end  explain  nothing. 
»  Marquez  never  returned  to  Queretaro.  "Was  he  a  traitor?  In 
the  peculiarly  expressive  language  of  the  race  to  which  he  belonged, 
the  answer  is  only  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  a  quien  sabe.  In  a 
nation  of  traitors,  what  matters  one  or  two  more  or  less  ?  Marquez 
not  only  did  not  report,  but  such  were  the  infamies  of  his  reign  in 
Mexico,  and  such  the  outrages  and  oppressions  he  put  upon  the 
p30ple,  that  many,  even  in  the  last  sad  days  of  the  Empire— many, 
indeed,  who  were  faithful  and  pure  of  heart — rose  up  to  curse  Maxi- 
milUn,  and  to  rejoice  when  the  couriers  came  ridingi  southward, 
telling  of  how  the  work  was  done. 

On  the  27th  of  March  a  passable  sortie  was  made.  Two  hundred 
Aiutriin  Hussars,  of  the  household  troops,  and  a  squadron  or  so  of 
Hungarians,  dashed  across  an  open  field  at  the  charge,  capturing 
two  pieces  of  artillery  and  two  hundred  men. 

No  succor  came  from  the  Capital.  Marquez  reached  the  City  of 
Mexico  in  safety  and  increased  his  forces  to  four  thousand  soldiers, 
eight  hundred  of  whom  were  Europeans.  Instead  of  marching 
immediately  northward  to  Queretaro^  he  marched  directly  south- 


410  SIIELEY'S  E.YPLDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

ward  to  Pueblo,  then  held  by  an  Imperial  garrison,  but  closely 
besieged  by  General  Purfirio  Diaz.  As  Marquez  approached,  Diaz 
stormed  the  city,  enlisted  a  large  proportion  of  its  defenders  in  his 
own  ranks  and  turned  savagely  upon  Marquez.  He  retreated  at  first 
without  a  battle.  Diaz  pressed  him  fiercely,  some  heavy  skirmishing 
ensued,  but  in  the  end  all  opposition  ceased,  and  the  remnant  of 
Maximilian's  army  cooped  itself  up  within  the  walls  of  Mexico  and 
surrendered  later  at  discretion. 

On  the  14th  of  April,  at  Queretaro,  the  Emperor's  forces  made 
another  sortie,  taking  nineteen  guns  and  six  hundred  prisoners.  It 
was  then  his  intention  to  abandon  this  position  and  reach  Mexico 
by  forced  and  incessant  marches.  But  upon  ascertaining  fully  the 
results  of  the  victory,  and  becoming  thoroughly  acquainted  with  its 
magnitude  and  effect,  he  countermanded  the  order  of  execution  and 
tarried  yet  a  while  longer,  hoping  to  hear  something  that  would 
reassure  him  from  other  quarters.  Finally  abandoning  all  idea  of 
succor  from  the  movements  of  Marquez,  he  ordered  Prince  Salm 
Salm,  on  the  night  of  the  17th,  to  go  in  quest  of  him,  ascertain 
exactly  his  intentions,  arrest  and  iron  him  if  the  need  was,  and 
bring  back  with  him  every  available  soldier  possible  under  his  com- 
mand. 

Prince  Salm  Salm,  at  the  head  of  five  hundred  cavalry,  sallied 
out  precisely  at  midnight  and  advanced  probably  half  a  league. 
Suddenly  a  tremendous  fire  was  opened  upon  him  from  artillery  and 
infantry.  Severely  wounded  in  the  foot  himself,  and  satisfied  frcm 
the  force  in  position  across  his  only  road  of  exit  that  he  could  not 
get  through,  he  returned  within  the  lines,  baffled  and  demoralized. 

On  the  1st  of  May  still  another  sortie  was  attempted.    Miramon 
led  this,  and  led  it  badly.     Two  hours  of  desperate  fighting  gave  • 
him  no  advantage,  and  when  at  last  he  was  forced  back,  it  was  with 
a  precipitancy  so  great  as  to  appear  like  a  rout. 

The  cloud  of  disaster  now  became  darker  and  nearer.  Maximil- 
ian bore  up  bravely.  As  long  as  his  private  funds  lasted,  he  divided 
them  among  the  sick  and  the  wounded.  Constantly  in  the  front  of 
the  fight,  and  dauntless  in  the  discharge  of  every  duty,  he  com- 
manded, inspired,  toiled  and  faced  the  inevitable  as  became  the 
greatness  o$ his  nature  and  the  magnitude  of  the  interests  at  stake. 
He  commanded  scarcely  nine  thousand  men.  Foremost  in  the  sor- 
ties, forming  all  the  forlorn  hopes,  lookirg  forward  to  the  future 
only  as  those  who  had  no  future,  his  Europeans  died  and  mar'c  no 
moan.  Many  near  and  dear  to  him  had  fallen.  Some  who  had  fol- 
lowed his  fortunes  in  other  lands  and  on  seas  full  of  wonderand 
peril,  fell  where  could  come  to  them  neither  friendly  hand  nor 
sepulchre.  Those  the  enemy  got  they  mutilated— those  who  dragged 
themselves  back  from  the  battle's  wreck,  slowly  and  painfully,  had 
the  prayer  of  the  priest  and  the  last  warm  grasp  of  a  kingly  hand. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  411 

These  were  all — but  to  these  poor,  faithful,  simple-minded  soldiers, 
these  were  a  great  deal. 

On  the  morning  of  the  13th  of  May,  Maximilian  determined, 
when  the  night  came,  to  abandon  the  city  of  Queretaro.  Having 
yet,  however,  to  arm  some  three  thousand  citizens,  the  evacu- 
ation was  postponed.  On  the  evening  of  the  14th,  Miramon  came 
to  the  Emperor  and  suggested  to  him  the  importance  of  calling 
a  council  composed  of  all  the  Generals  of  the  army.  Above 
all  things  it  was  necessary  to  have  unity  of  action,  and  this  could 
best  be  done  after  a  full  and  free  interchange  of  opinion  was 
indulged  in.  The  Emperor  consented,  and  in  consenting  signed 
his  death  warrant. 

Before  the  consultation  was  had,  the  Emperor  turned  his  honest, 
clear  blue  eyes  upon  the  face  of  Colonel  Lopez,  commander  of  the 
Empress'  Regiment,  and  said  to  him  very  gently,  as  he  laid  his  hand, 
comrade  fashion,  upon  his  shoulder,  decorated  with  the  epaulettes 
the  Empress  herself  had  braided  : 

"  You  need  take  no  concern  about  the  march.  Your  regiment 
has  been  detailed  as  my  especial  escort." 

The  Judas  smiled  as  all  Judases  have  done  for  six  thousand 
years,  and  went  his  way  to  betray  him. 

The  Generals  met  during  the  day  of  the  14th,  and  resolved  to 
march  out  from  Queretaro  at  eleven  o'clock  that  night.  When  the 
time  came  the  volunteers  were  still  unarmed,  and  some  of  the  Gen- 
erals asked  the  delay  of  another  day.  General  Mendez,  also,  a 
gallant  and  devoted  officer,  being  quite  unwell  and  unable  to  ride, 
sent  Colonel  Redonet  to  the  Emperor  with  a  petition  asking  for 
further  time  that  he  might  conquer  his  malady  and  lead  his  old 
brigade  in  person. 

Maximilian  yielded  to  these  urgent  solicitations  and  fixed  at 
last  positively  upon  the  night  of  the  15th. 

Full  fifty  thousand  men  now  invested  Queretaro.  Corona,  a 
General  of  more  than  ordinary  Mexican  ability,  came  down  from 
Durango  and  joined  his  forces  to  those  of  Escobedo.  The  lines  of 
investment  were  complete — fifty  thousand  besieging  nine  thousacd. 

About  the  headquarters  of  Maximilian  all  was  silence  and 
expectancy.  General  Castillo,  of  the  Imperial  staff,  conveyed  to 
the  various  officers,  secretly  and  verbally,  the  orders  for  the  night. 
Nowhere  did  the  gleaming  of  camp  fires  appear.  The  infantry 
were  to  carry  their  cartridges  and  blankets,  the  cannon  upon  the 
fortifications  were  to  be  spiked  and  the  magazines  flooded.  Some 
eight  and  ten- pounders,  dismounted  and  packed  on  mules,  together 
with  light  supplies  of  grape  and  canister,  completed  the  arm  of 
resistance  in  the  way  of  artillery. 

On  the  west  and  directly  in  front  of  the  lines  held  by  Corona  the 
entire  garrison  was  to  be  concentrated.  Thence  pouring  out  through 


412  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

the  night — surprising,  stabbing,  bayoneting,  gaining  the  rugged 
defiles  of  the  Sierra  Gorda — there  was  slight  work  thereafter  in 
laying  hands  upon  succor  and  safety. 

Twelve  hundred  armed  citizens  of  Queretaro  were  to  remain 
behind  and  protect  the  people  and  the  property  of  the  city  as  far  as 
might  be.  These,  after  twenty -four  hours  had  passed,  were  to  sur- 
render to  General  Escobedo.  The  Emperor  retired  at  eight  o'clock 
and  slept  until  one.  Prince  Salm  Salm,  until  twelve  o'clock,  was 
busy  in  arranging  the  private  papers  of  Maximilian  and  in  packing 
them  in  small  canvas  sacks  that  might  be  strapped  to  the  saddles  of 
the  escort  company.  Many  were  busy  in  writing  words  of  tender- 
ness and  farewell.  As  there  were  no  lights,  the  staff  officer 3  assisted 
each  other  by  smoking  cigarettes  close  to  the  paper  that  a  few  words 
might  be  scribbled  by  the  fleeting  and  uncertain  light. 

The  sortie  might  have  won.  It  was  the  last  and  only  resort  of 
nine  thousand  desperate  men  who  had  been  starving,  who  in  eleven 
days  had  only  scant  allowances  of  mule  or  horse  meat,  and  who  had 
been  under  fire  long  enough  to  be  acclimated. 

It  was  not  to  be,  however.  Between  one  and  two  o'clock  the 
traitor  Lopez,  having  previously  communicated  with  Escobedo, 
crept  silently  from  his  quarters  and  took  his  way  through  the  dark 
and  narrow  streets  of  Queretaro.  Colonel  Garza,  commanding  the 
advance  outposts  of  the  investing  army,  met  him  first.  Garza  was 
an  honorable  soldier  who  despised  the  work  he  was  engaged  in,  and 
the  man  who  came  to  him  in  the  midnight,  a  coward  and  a  traitor. 
As  he  advanced  to  meet  him  he  did  not  extend  his  hand,  but  said 
curtly: 

"  You  are  expected.    Such  work  as  this  needs  to  be  done  quickly." 

Garza  reported  with  Lopez  to  General  Veliz,  a  division  comman-^ 
der.     The  three  together  visited    Escobedo  and  returned  almost 
directly,  Garza  having  been  ordered  to  follow  the  traitor  with  his 
command  and  do  as  he  was  bidden. 

There  was  a  large  church  on  the  south  called  La  Cruz,  and  near 
this  church  a  hole  in  the  wall  of  defense.  Thither  went  Lopez, 
Veliz  and  Garza.  Here  Veliz  halted,  but  Garza  and  Lopez  went  on. 
Be  it  remembered,  also,  that  Lopez  had  been  the  officer  of  the  day, 
that  he  was  the  highest  just  then  in  authority  in  the  city,  and  that 
having  the  pass  word,  he  could  arrange  the  forces  at  pleasure,  and 
transpose  or  withdraw  posts  and  outposts  as  the  exigencies  of  his 
terrible  treason  might  demand. 

Whan  the  nearest  station  of  Imperial  troops  was  reached,  Garza 
halted  his  command.  Lopez  rode  forward  and  asked  of  the  officer 
on  duty  if  there  was  any  news. 

"None,"  was  the  reply. 

"Then  parade  your  men  and  call  the  roll." 

This  was  done  with  military  accuracy  and  speed.  Afterward 
the  detachment  was  marched  to  the  rear  of  Garza,  leaving  him  in 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  413 

possession  of  the  fort.  The  Liberals  were  in  Queretaro.  The 
beginning  of  the  end  was  at  hand.  Other  Liberal  officers  were  put 
in  possession  of  other  posts,  and  before  an  hour  had  passed  the 
treachery  was  complete.  As  the  Liberal  forces  entered  the  city, 
quite  a  number  of  the  Imperial  officers  were  awake.  As  they  saw 
Colonel  Rincon's  regiment — a  Liberal  regiment  of  some  celebrity — 
march  by  their  barracks,  they  looked  out  carelessly  and  took  no 
note.  Some  of  their  own  troops,  they  imagined,  were  going  by  or 
getting  ready  for  the  sortie. 

By  half  past  three  o'clock  fully  two-thirds  of  the  city  was  in 
possession  of  the  Liberals.  Suddenly  and  with  great  force  all  the 
church  bells  began  to  ring.  The  streets  were  filled  with  bodies  of 
armed  men.  Aides  galloped  hither  and  thither.  Skirmishing  shots 
broke  out  in  every  direction.  There  were  cries,  shouts,  the  blare 
of  bugles,  and  from  afar  the  heavy  rumbling  and  dragging  of 
artillery. 

Great  confusion  fell  upon  the  Imperialists.  Some  thought  that 
Marquez  had  returned,  and  had  attacked  and  defeated  Escobedo. 
Others,  that  it  was  only  a  fight  at  the  outposts — many,  that  the  short, 
hot  work  of  the  sortie  had  actually  begun.  And  so  it  had,  with  the 
lines  reversed.  Lopez  had  an  adjutant,  a  Pole  named  Yablonski, 
who  was  with  him  in  his  treasonable  plot,  but  who  yet  sought  to 
save  the  Emperor.  Feigning  sleep,  he  had  not  yet  closed  his  eyes 
in  slumber.  All  his  senses  were  on  the  gui  mve  for  the  ringing  of 
the  bells  that  were  to  usher  in  the  tragedy.  The  first  echo  brought 
him  to  his  feet — erect,  nervous,  vigorous. 

Maximilian  occupied  the  convent  of  La  Cruz,  and  next  to  the 
room  of  the  Emperor  was  that  of  his  private  secretary,  Jose  Blasio. 
Yablonski  went  close  up  to  Blasio  and  whispered  : 

"  The  enemy  are  in  the  garden;  get  up!" 

Half  dressed  and  heavy  with  the  deep  sleep  of  exhaustion,  Blasio 
staggered  into  the  apartment  of  the  Emperor.  In  a  few  moments 
Maximilian  knew  all.  He  was  the  coolest  man  there,  and  so  sad 
and  so  gentle  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  did  not  care  to  live.  The  con- 
vent was  surrounded.  Castillo,  Guzman,  Salm  Salm  and  Padillo, 
all  officers  who  were  quartered  near  the  Emperor,  walked  into  his 
presence.  Padillo  informed  him  that  the  enemy  were  in  possession 
of  the  convent ;  that  ten  pieces  of  artillery  had  been  taken  in  its  very 
plaza,  and  that  all  defense  of  the  mere  building  itself  was  useless. 
Maximilian  very  quietly  took  up  a  brace  of  revolvers,  handed  one 
to  Padillo,  and  went  to  the  door  of  his  room,  followed  by  Padillo, 
Blasio  and  Salm  Salm.  "  To  go  out  here  or  to  die  is  the  only  way," 
he  said,  and  they  crossed  the  corridor. 

A  sentinel  at  the  head  of  the  steps  halted  them.  Maximilian 
leveled  his  revolver.  An  officer  of  the  Liberal  army— a  brave, 
chivalrous  and  heroic  Mexican,  supposed  to  be  Col.  Rincon — 


414  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

struck  -with  a  strange  and  generous  pity,  cried  out  to  the  sen- 
tinel: 

"Let  them  pass;  they  are  citizens." 

In  the  Plaza  a  line  of  leveled  muskets  again  came  up  in  front  of 
them.  Capture  was  imminent — or  death  unknown  and  ignominious. 
Again  Rincon  spoke  to  the  soldiers: 

"  Let  them  pass;  they  are  civilians." 

The  lines  opened  and  the  Emperor,  followed  by  his  little  escort, 
reached  the  regiment  of  the  Empress.  Lopez,  its  Colonel  and  its 
betrayer,  was  at  its  head,  mounted  and  ready  for  orders.  A  huge 
hill,  El  Cerro  de  las  Campanas,  was  the  rallying  point  now  of 
Maximilian's  confused,  scattered  and  demoralized  forces.  Thither 
he  hurried  with  what  was  left  of  this  chosen  body  of  his  very  house- 
hold's troops.  On  the  way  Castillo  was  met,  who  cried  out: 

"All  is  lost.  See,  your  Majesty,  the  enemy's  force  is  coming  very 
near." 

Just  then  a  body  of  infantry  was  entering  the  Plaza.  Mis- 
taken in  their  uniforms,  and  not  aware  of  the  extent  and  nature  of 
the  surprise,  Maximilian  exclaimed : 

"Thank  God,  our  battalion  of  Municipal  Guards  are  coming." 

The  error,  however,  was  soon  discovered  and  the  little  party 
started  again  for  the  hill,  El  Cerro.  Maximilian  was  on  foot.  A 
horse,  however,  was  brought  to  him  which  he  mounted,  reigning  it 
in  and  keeping  pace  with  his  companions.  Lopez  remained  close  to 
his  side.  Passing  the  house  of  one  Rubio,  a  rich  Mexican,  though 
not  an  Imperialist,  Lopez  said  to  the  Emperor: 

"  Your  majesty  should  enter  here.  In  this  way  alone  can  you 
save  yourself." 

Maximilian  refused  peremptorily,  and  issued  his  orders  with 
singular  calmness  and  clearness.  Meeting  Captain  Jenero,  General 
Castillo's  adjutant,  he  bade  him  seek  Miramon  at  once  and  order 
him  to  concentrate  every  available  soldier  upon  El  Cerro  de  las 
Campanas.  To  another  officer  he  cried  out: 

"Go  among  your  men  and  talk  to  them.  Expose  your  person 
and  teach  them  how  to  die." 

On  the  summit  of  the  hill  there  were  only  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men  gathered.  These,  belonging  principally  to  the  infantry 
regiments,  had  strayed  there  more  because  of  the  observation  the 
elevation  afforded  than  of  a  knowledge  that  it  was  the  rallying 
point.  Not  all  of  them  had  ammunition.  Some,  roused  suddenly 
from  sleep,  had  snatched  up  only  their  guns  and  rushed  out  alarmed 
into  the  night.  Soon  the  cavalry  of  the  Empress  arrived,  and, 
recognizing  the  Emperor,  cheered  for  him  bravely.  This  devotion 
touched  him,  and  under  the  light  of  the  stars  he  was  seen  to  lift  up 
his  hat  and  bow  his  head. 

Was  he  thinking  of  Carlota? 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OP  THE  WAR.  415 

Miramon  did  not  come.  The  firing  grew  heavier  in  every  direc- 
tion. Mejia  rallying  a  few  men  in  the  Plaza  del  Ayuntamiento  fol- 
lowed the  regiment  of  the  Empress.  ^  As  they  approached  Maxi- 
milian spoke  to  Salm  Salm. 

"Ride  forward  and  see  if  Miramon  can  not  be  distinguished 
among  those  who  are  coming  up." 

General  Mendez,  a  lion  in  combat,  and  so  weak  from  illness  as 
to  be  put  with  difficulty  upon  his  horse,  was  surprised  in  the  Ala- 
meda,  and  surrounded.  Would  he  surrender?  Never:  and  the  bat- 
tle began.  It  was  a  carnage — a  massacre.  His  men  fell  fearfully 
fast — shot  down,  helpless,  by  an  unseen  and  protected  foe.  A  ball 
broke  his  left  arm.  He  swayed  in  the  saddle,  but  he  held  fast. 

"Bring  here  a  strap!"  he  shouted,  and  strap  me  fast.  I  want 
to  die  in  the  harness." 

He  tried  to  cut  through  to  El  Cerro.  Met  half  way,  and  caught 
in  a  dreadful  ambuscade,  the  slaughter  was  renewed.  Another 
ball  carried  away  the  point  of  his  chin,  and  yet  a  third  disabled  his 
right  shoulder,  and  yet  a  fourth  killed  his  horse.  Scarcely  alive, 
he  was  dragged  out  insensible.  Reviving  a  little  toward  daylight, 
at  six  in  the  morning  a  fusilade  finished  him  Among  all  the 
soldiers  of  Maximilian,  he  was  the  noblest,  the  bravest  and  the  best. 

How  fared  it  with  Miramon,  sound  asleep  when  the  traitor  Lopez 
stole  in  through  the  battered  wall  at  the  head  of  an  insatiable  tide 
swallowing  up  the  tottering  and  dissolving  fabric  of  Imperialism? 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

AWAKENED  by  the  ringing  of  bells,  the  broken  rattle  of  irregular 
musketry,  and  now  and  then  a  cannon  shot,  Miramon  half  arose  in 
his  bed,  cleared  his  eyes  from  the  heaviness  of  sleep,  and  spoke 
calmly  to  his  aid-de-camp. 

"I  fear  that  we  are  lost.  Inside  the  walls  a  traitor  has  surely 
been  at  work." 

He  dressed  himself  speedily,  and  descended  into  the  street.  It 
was  full  of  soldiers.  He  imagined  that  they  were  his  own.  He 
spoke  to  them  and  announced  his  name  and  rank.  An  officer  on 
horseback  rushed  upon  him,  put  a  carbine  to  his  cheek  and  fired. 
Miramon,  his  jaw-bone  shattered  and  his  flesh  blackened  and 
powder  burnt,  swayed  backward  nearly  from  his  feet,  caught 
himself,  lifted  himself  upright,  and  killed  the  officer  dead  in  his 
saddle  who  had  shot  him. 

Miramon  had  a  devoted  body-guard,  and  it  rallied  around  him. 
In  the  darkness  the  fight  became  furious.  Striving  in  vain  to  reach 
the  hill  where  he  supposed  the  Emperor  was  making  a  desperate 
stand,  and  weak  from  the  l»ss  of  blood,  Miramon  staggered  upon  an 
open  door  and  entered  a  house.  It  was  the  house  of  Dr.  Samanie- 
gos,  who  hid  him  and  kissed  him,  and,  Mexican  like,  went  out  into 
the  streets  to  give  his  life  away.  He  proclaimed  aloud  to  the 
Liberals  that  Miramon  was  alone  in  his  house,  and  that  the  time 
was  opportune  to  lay  hands  upon  him.  A  band  rushed  in  and 
bound  and  gagged  him,  and  dragged  him  away — suffering  excruciat- 
ing torture — to  the  convent  of  Terrecitas. 

The  Emperor,  therefore,  waited  in  vain  for  Miramon — waited  in 
agony  and  uncertainty  until  two  batteries  of  San  Gregorio  and 
Celaya  opened  a  tremendous  fire  upon  his  position.  Turning  to 
Prince  Salm  Salm,  he  was  heard  to  exclaim  from  the  depths  of  his 
despair : 

"  Oh,  my  friend,  would  that  one  of  these  shells  would  end  it  all 
now,  and  speedily." 

Alas!  he  was  reserved  for  Mexican  bullets. 

Directly,  Colonel  Gonzales  galloped  up  with  a  portion  of  a  regi- 
ment, saluted,  and  reported  the  condition  of  Miramon.  Maximilian 
sighed  heavily,  rested  his  head  upon  his  hands  for  a  few  moments, 
and  then  demanded  suddenly  of  Castillo  and  Mejia  if  it  were  pos- 
sible to  break  through  the  lines  of  the  enemy. 

Old  Mejia,  the  small,  cool,  devoted  Indian  fatalist  and  fighter, 
turned  his  glass  toward  the  enemy  and  surveyed  them  accurately 
through  the  night.  When  he  had  finished,  he  merely  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  replied  : 

416 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  417 

"  Sire,  it  is  impossible.  If  you  order  it  we  will  try  it.  For  my 
part,  I  am  ready  to  die.  For  fifty  years  I  have  waited  for  this." 

Maximilian  then  took  Padillo  by  the  arm  and  spoke  to  him 
briefly : 

"  It  is  necessary  to  make  a  quick  determination  in  order  to  avoid 
greater  misfortunes.  Is  it  surrender  ?  " 

"Yes,  sire,"  said  Castillo,  Padillo,  Gonzales,  and  "Yes,  sire," 
said  Mejia,  in  a  sad  whisper,  his  head  drooping  upon  his  breast. 

Immediately  a  white  flag  was  lifted  up  from  the  top  of  the  hill, 
and  messengers  were  sent  at  once  to  Escobedo  asking  an  interview 
upon  the  following  basis : 

"First— To  make  Maximilian  alone  the  victim  of  the  war. 

"Second— The  men  of  the  army  to  be  treated  with  the  soldierly 
consideration  merited  by  their  valor  and  devotion. 

"  Third— The  lives  and  liberty  of  those  who  were  immediately 
in  the  Emperor's  personal  services." 

Before  an  answer  was  returned,  Maximilian  saw  in  the  dis- 
tance a  small  squadron  of  soldiers,  dressed  in  scarlet,  and  riding  at 
a  rapid  speed  toward  the  Campanas.  He  mistook  them  for  his 
own  Hussars,  and  cried  out,  his  voice  heavy  with  emotion : 

"It  is  too  late — they  come  too  late,  but  see  what  a  fearful  risk 
they  run  to  reach  me.  Look  how  they  endure  the  fire  of  the  bat- 
teries. Who  would  not  be  proud  of  such  soldiers  ?  " 

Alas  !  they  were  not  even  a  portion  of  his  own  decimated  yet 
devoted  foreign  followers.  They  were  the  advance  of  Trevina's 
robber  cavalry,  coming  to  hunt  the  Emperor. 

As  they  drew  near,  the  fire  slackened,  and  suddenly  ceased  alto- 
gether. An  officer,  a  captain,  rode  forward,  and  with  a  vulgar  and 
cowardly  epithet,  demanded  Maximilian.  His  Majesty,  calm  as  a 
gi  snadier  on  guard,  stepped  outside  the  fortification,  and  replied 
with  much  sweetness  and  dignity: 

"I  am  he." 

"Mendezhas  been  shot,"  this  officer  continued  brutally,  "and 
Miramon,  and  by  and  by  it  will  come  Maximilian's  and  Mejia's 
turn." 

The  Emperor  did  not  answer.    He  pitied  the  coward  who  did 

not  know  how  to  treat  misfortune.    Sternly  bidding  his  subordinate 

to  go  to  the  rear,  General  Echegarry,  a  Liberal  officer  of  some 

humanity,  rode  to  the  front  and  demanded  courteously  the  surrender 

%   of  Maximilian  and  his  officers.    This  was  at  once  accorded,  the 

Emperor  again  exclaiming,  "If  you  should  require  anybody's  life, 

:    take  mine,  but  do  not  harm  my  officers.    I  am  willing  to  die  if  you 

|   require  it,  but  intercede  with  General  Escobedo  for  the  life  of  my 

officers." 

Presently  General  Corona  rode  up,  and  again  the  Emperor  inter- 
ceded for  his  personal  adherents  -. 


418  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

"If  you  want  another  victim,  I  am  prepared  to  go.  Do  not 
harm  those  whose  only  crime  in  your  eyes. is  their  devotion  to  me." 

Corona  replied  coldly: 

"  It  does  not  belong  to  me  to  make  promises.  Until  you  are  deliv- 
ered to  the  General-in-chief  in  person,  your  own  life  and  that  of  your 
officers  will  be  safe." 

Horses  were  furnished,  and  the  Imperialist  Generals,  Costello, 
Mejia  and  Salm  Salm,  together  with  the  Emperor,  and  the  Liberal 
Generals,  Corona  and  Echegarry,  mounted  and  rode  down  the  hill 
toward  the  city.  It  was  not  long  before  General  Escobedo  was 
met,  when  a  countermarch  was  had,  and  they  all  returned  to  the  hill 
again,  and  into  the  fort  where  they  dismounted. 

After  dismounting,  Maximilian  extended  his  hand  to  Escobedo. 
His  own  safety  never,  for  a  single  instant,  seemed  to  have  entered 
-  his  mind.    His  talk  was  ever  of  his  followers. 

"If  you  wish  more  blood,"  he  remarked  to  Escobedo,  "take 
mine.  I  ask  at  your  hands  good  treatment  for  the  officers  who 
have  been  true  to  me.  Do  not  let  them  be  insulted  or  maltreated." 

"All  shall  be  treated  as  prisoners  of  war,  even  your  Majesty," 
was  the  significant  reply  of  the  Mexican  butcher. 

In  an  hour,  with  a  heavy  guard  over  him — homeless,  crownless, 
sceptreless — Maximilian  was  a  close  prisoner  in  the  convent  of  La 
Cruz.  At  his  special  request  the  officers  of  his  household,  Prince 
Salm  Salm,  Colonel  Guzman,  Minister  Aguirre,  Colonel  Padillo,  Dr. 
Basch,  and  Don  Jose  Blasio,  his  Secretary,  were  permitted  to  be 
imprisoned  in  the  same  building.  They  remained  four  days  there — 
three  of  which  the  Emperor  remained  in  bed,  seriously  sick  of  a 
dysentery.  On  the  fifth  day  they  were  removed  to  the  Convent  of 
Terrecitas.  After  enduring  seven  days  of  rigorous  captivity  in  this 
gloomy  abode,  they  were  taken  to  the  Convent  of  Capuchinas, 
where  were  also  imprisoned  all  the  Generals  of  the  Imperial  army. 
For  four  days  they  all  remained  together  on  the  first  floor.  On 
the  fifth,  Maximilian,  Mejia  and  Miramon  were  separated  from  the 
rest  and  imprisoned  in  the  second  story.  The  work  of  winnowing 
had  already  commenced — so  soon  and  yet  so  ominous. 

Here  the  Emperor  had  leisure  to  review  the  past,  and  answer  to 
his  own  heart  the  question :  Had  he  done  his  duty.  In  his  con- 
science, perhaps,  there  was  little  of  upbraiding.  True,  he  had  com- 
mitted mistakes  here  and  grievous  errors  of  judgment  yonder;  but 
who  is  infallible  ?  He  had  tried  to  do  right,  and  he  had  nothing  to 
reproach  himself  with.  No  form  of  speech  could  express  his  aston- 
ishment at  the  betrayal  of  Lopez.  He  had  trusted  him  in  all  things, 
confided  in  him,  leaned  upon  him,  lifted  him  up  and  promoted  him, 
brought  him  to  the  flattery  and  friendship  of  his  beautiful  Empress — 
and  in  the  one  supreme  moment  of  his  destiny,  in  the  very  hour  of 
the  desperate  crisis  of  his  life  and  his  reign,  this  Lopez;  this  tawny, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  419 

fawning,  creeping,  cowardly  thing,  surrendered  himself  without  so 
much  as  a  quickened  pulse-beat,  or  a  guilty  and  accusing  blush.  He 
had  been  the  godfather  to  Lopez's  child.  He  had  laid  bare  to  Lopez 
the  inmost  recesses  of  his  heart,  and  in  his  last  and  most  terrible 
hour  to  be  betrayed  when  the  struggle  he  was  making  was  not  even 
for  himself,  was  too  bad. 

Nor  did  Lopez  lay  himself  down  on  a  bed  of  roses  when  the 
black  treachery  was  done.  His  beautiful  wife  deserted  him,  and 
published  to  all  Mexico  the  story  of  his  infamy  and  ingratitude. 
His  children  abandoned  his  household  and  sought  shelter  and  pro- 
tection with  the  mother.  On  dress  parade  one  day,  when  an  army 
was  on  review,  a  Juarista  Colonel  smote  him  upon  either  cheek,  the 
lazzaroni  hooted  at  him  and  cried  out  "  el  triador!  el  triador!  "  as  he 
passed  along,  the  very  beggars  turned  away  their  eyes  from  him 
without  asking  for  alms,  and  nowhere  could  he  find  pity  and 
charity  except  in  the  bosom  of  that  church  which,  no  matter  how 
dark  are  the  stains  of  blood  upon  the  hands  of  the  sinners,  prays 
always  that  they  may  be  made  white  as  snow. 

The  captivity  of  Maximilian  continued.  It  was  rigid,  gloomy, 
foreboding  —  a  little  darker  than  Spanish  captivity  generally, 
because  to  the  cruelty  of  the  original  Spaniard,  there  had  been  added 
the  cunning  and  selfish  craftiness  of  the  Indian.  He  was  denied  all 
intercourse  with  his  fellows  except  that  which  the  officials  had.  His 
food  was  coarse,  his  water  not  plenty,  his  sunlight  barred  out,  and 
his  pure  air  made  pestilential  because  of  the  filth  with  which  they 
delighted  to  surround  him. 

Physical  deprivations,  however,  made  no  way  to  subdue  the  lofty 
pride  and  the  Christian  heroism  and  fortitude  of  his  kingly  charac- 
ter. His  head  was  yet  borne  splendidly  erect,  and  in  the  day  or  the 
night-time,  in  a  room  that  was  like  a  dungeon,  or  in  the  vestibule 
where  the  naked  and  unwashed  animals  of  sentinels  slept,  he  was  the 
same  patient,  kindly,  courteous  gentleman — true  to  his  name,  his 
lineage,  and  his  manhood. 

The  half-breed  butchers,  however,  who  were  soon  to  try  him, 
and  to  sit  with  sandalled  feet  about  the  table  where  military  justice 
was  to  declare  itself,  tried^first,  in  Indian  fashion,  to  degrade  the 
victim  they  meant  to  torture  alive.  A  proclamation,  purporting  to 
have  been  written  by  Maximilian,  was  printed  in  every  newspaper 
in  the  Empire.  It  bore  no  date.  It  was  abject,  cowardly,  plausible 
if  a  Mexican  had  written  it,  a  paltry  forgery  when  ascribed  to  a 
Hapsburg,  and  it  was  as  follows  : 

"  The  Archduke  Ferdinard  Maximilian, of  Hapsburg,  ex-Emperor 
of  Mexico,  to  all  of  its  inhabitants : 

"  COMPATRIOTS  : 

"After the  valor  and  the  patriotism  of  the  Republican  armies 
have  brought  about  the  end  of  my  reign  in  this  city,  the  obstinate 


420  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

defense  of  which  was  indispensable  to  save  the  honor  of  my  cause 
and  of  my  race ;  after  this  bloody  siege,  in  irhich  have  rivaled  in 
abnegation  and  bravery  the  soldiers  of  the  Empire *with  those  of  the 
Republic,  I  am  going  to  explain  myself  to  you. 

"Compatriots  :  I  came  to  Mexico  animated  not  only  with  a  firm 
hope  of  making  you,  and  every  one  of  you,  individually  happy,  but 
also  protected  and  called  to  the  throne  of  Montezuma  and  Iturbide 
by  the  Emperor  of  France,  Napoleon  III.  He  has  abandoned  us 
cowardly  and  infamously,  through  the  fear  of  the  United  States, 
placing  in  ridicule  France  itself,  and  making  it  spend  uselessly  its 
treasures,  and  shedding  the  blood  of  its  sons  and  your  own.  When 
the  news  of  my  fall  and  death  will  reach  Europe,  all  its  monarchs, 
and  the  land  of  Charlemange,  will  ask  an  account  of  my  blood,  and 
that  of  the  Germans,  Belgians  and  French  shed  in  Mexico,  from 
the  Napoleon  dynasty.  Then  will  be  the  end. 

"  The  whole  world  will  soon  see  Napoleon  covered  with  shame 
from  head  to  foot. 

"  Now  the  world  sees  his  Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  my 
august  brother,  supplicating  for  my  life  before  the  United  States, 
and  me  a  prisoner  of  war  at  the  disposition  of  the  Republican  gov- 
ernment, with  my  crown  and  heart  torn  to  pieces. 

"  Compatriots:  My  last  words  to  you  are  these:  I  ardently  desire 
that  my  blood  may  regenerate  Mexico;  and  that  as  a  warning  to  all 
ambitious  and  incautious  persons,  you  may  know  how,  with  pru- 
dence and  true  patriotism,  to  take  advantage  of  your  triumph,  and 
through  your  virtues  ennoble  the  political  cause,  the  banner  of 
which  you  sustain.  May  Providence  save  you,  and  make  me  worthy 
of  myself.  * '  MAXIMILIAN. " 

The  vile  forgery  went  everywhere.  The  soldiers  on  guard  that 
could  read,  read  it  aloud  and  laughed  long  and  derisively  in  the 
hearing  of  the  Emperor.  A  copy  was  brought  to  him.  He  wrote 
upon  the  back,  in  pencil,  this: 

"I  authorize  Colonel  and  Aid-de-Camp  Prince  Salm  Salm  to 
deny  in  my  name  this  last  effort  to  disgrace  me  before  posterity. 
This  proclamation  is  not  mine,  its  sentiments  are  not  mine,  its 
declarations  are  not  true,  and  these,  therefore,  certainly  can  not  be 
mine.  Should  Colonel  and  Aid-de-Camp  Prince  Salm  Salm  escape 
the  fate  certainly  in  store  for  me,  he  will  publish  in  Europe  this  my 
earnest  declaration." 

.  Salm  Salm  did  survive  him,  and  history  has  given  the  lie  fully 
to  the  black  plot  worthy  of  the  nation  that  concocted  it. 

The  trial  was  a  farce.  Since  the  work  of  the  traitor  Lopez,  there 
had  been  no  hope  for  Maximilian. 

On  Tuesday  morning,  May  28,  1867,  the  friends  of  the  Emperor 
began  to  bestir  themselves  in  his  behalf.  Mr.  Bansen,  the  Hamburg 
Consul,  resident  at  San  LuisPotosi,  the  wife  of  Prince  Salm  Salm, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  421 

Baron  Magnus,  the  Prussian  Minister,  and  Frederick  Hall,  an 
American  lawyer,  concentrated  themselves  at  Queretaro  and  laid 
plans  for  the  acquittal  of  his  Majesty. 

Maximilian  talked  much  before  his  trial— the  broken  and  uncon- 
nected talk  of  one  who  felt  without  seeing  it,  the  shadow  of  approach- 
ing death.  He  declared  that  he  came  to  Mexico  with  the  sincere 
belief  that  he  was  called  to  the  government  by  the  great  masses  of 
the  people.  After  his  reception  at  Vera  Cruz  he  had  remarked  to 
the  Empress:  "  Surely  the  deputation  were  right  when  they  said  a 
majority  of  the  Mexicans  were  in  favor  of  our  coming  to  be  their 
ruler.  I  never  in  all  Europe  saw  a  sovereign  received  with  such 
enthusiasm  as  greeted  us." 

He  put  upon  Bazaine  the  responsibility  of  the  decree  of  October 
3,  1865,  that  decree  which  required  the  execution  of  all  Liberals 
caught  with  arms  in  their  hands.  Bazaine,  he  said,  appeared  before 
the  Council  of  State  and  declared  that  decree  to  be  a  military  neces- 
sity. Juarez  was  in  Texas,  although  Juarez  had  always  denied  hav- 
ing been  driven  out  of  the  country.  On  this  point  he  was  exceed- 
ingly sensitive,  and  because  of  the  statement  made  by  the  Emperor 
that  Juarez  was  no  longer  in  the  territory  he  professed  to  rule  over 
as  President,  he,  the  Emperor,  was  clearly  of  the  opinion  that 
Juarez  most  heartily  despised  him. 

Maximilian  might  have  gone  further  and  said  to  his  hatred  there 
had  been  added  ferocity. 

The  Emperor  held  the  Americans  in  high  estimation.  He  said: 
"The  Americans  are  a  great  people  for  improvements,  and  are  great 
lovers  of  justice.  They  pay  such  respect  to  the  laws  that  I  admire 
them.  And  if  God  should  spare  my  life,  I  intend  to  visit  the  United 
States  and  travel  through' them.  You  can  always  rely  on  the  word 
of  an  American  gentleman." 

Efforts  were  made  to  bring  the  trial  before  the  Mexican  Congress, 
but  it  failed.  The  cruel  Indian,  Juarez,  dared  not  trust  any  tribu- 
nal other  than  the  court  martial,  one  organized  to  convict,  and  one 
that  would,  therefore,  be  deaf,  blind  and  unsparing. 

On  the  morning  of  June  4th,  Maximilian  remarked  gayly  to  one 
of  his  counsellors : 

"We  must  hurry  with  business.  I  have  been  talking  with 
Miramon.  He  has  counted  up  the  time  and  says  that  he  thinks  they 
will  shoot  us  on  Friday  morning. " 

This  was  on  Tuesday  that  he  spoke  so,  and  while  under  the 
impression  that  the  lawyers  he  had  sent  for  to  the  City  of  Mexico 
would  not  be  permitted  to  come  through  the  lines  and  defend  him. 

Still  the  lawyers  did  not  come,  and  the  Princess  Salm  Salm 
determined  to  go  alone  to  look  for  them.  She  had  a  carriage  but 
no  horses,  and  an  application  was  made  to  a  Liberal  General  to 
furnish  just  two  animals  to  take  her  to  the  nearest  stage  station. 


422  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

The  General  replied  that  if  he  had  a  thousand  to  spare,  he  would 
not  let  one  go  for  any  such  purpose.  This  kind  of  spirit  prevailed, 
with  here  and  there  an  exception,  the  entire  army.  In  such  spirit 
was  the  Court  Martial  selected,  and  in  such  spirit  did  Escobedo 
declare  to  Juarez  that  unless  Maximilian  was  shot  he  could  not 
hold  his  troops  together. 

In  these  early  days  of  June  some  thoughts  of  escape  presented 
themselves  to  the  Emperor's  mind,  and  a  plan  to  save  him  had  been 
agreed  upon.  A  slippery  Italian  rascal,  one  Henry  B.  del  Borgo,  a 
Captain  in  the  Liberal  army,  had  received  two  thousand  dollars  from 
Maximilian  to  purchase  six  horses,  saddles,  equipments  and  pistols. 
Of  this  amount  the  Italian  spent  six  hundred  dollars  in  horses  and 
accoutrements,  which  were  to  be  ready  at  a  designated  spot  on  a 
certain  night.  The  three  prisoners  were  f  uthermore  to  be  let  out  at 
the  proper  time,  when  a  Quick  rush  was  to  take  place,  and  a  desper- 
ate gallop  for  the  mountains.  Mejia  knew  all  the  country,  the  plan 
was  a  most  feasible  one,  but  to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  the  Italian 
after  divulging  all  the  particulars  of  the  plot,  including  his  own 
actions  was  permitted  to  retire  upon  the  balance  of  the  money  and 
take  with  him  the  compliments  of  Escobedo  for  the  patriotism  and 
ability  he  had  manifested  in  thus  finding  out  and  exposing  the 
schemes  of  the  traitors. 

After  this  betrayal  on  the  part  of  the  miserable  little  Italian,  all 
the  foreigners  were  ordered  to  leave  Queretaro.  Escobedo  would 
make  no  exceptions.  Maximilian's  American  counsel  had  to  go 
with  the  rest,  and  all  of  the  Austrian  and  Belgian  officers  and 
soldiers  who  were  not  to  be  tried  for  their  lives  immediately. 

The  Government  of  Mexico  recognized  Maximilian  only  as  the 
Archduke  of  Austria,  and  his  Generals,  Miramon  and  Mejia,  only 
as  so-called  Generals.  As  such  the  court  martial  proceeded  to  try 
them — a  court  composed  as  follows:  Lieutenant-Colonel  Platon  San- 
chez, President;  Captains  Jose  Vincente  Ramirez,  Emilio  Lojero, 
Ignacio  Jurado,  Juan  Rueday  Auza,  Jose  Verastigui,  and  Lucas 
Villagran.  It  held  its  first  session  on  the  27th  day  of  May,  1867, 
and  on  the  14th  of  June,  of  the  same  year,  at  midnight,  the  three 
prisoners,  Maximilian,  Mejia,  and  Miramon,  were  sentenced  to 
death.  On  the  16th,  Escobedo  telegraphed  to  Juarez  as  follows: 
"  CITIZEN  PKESIDENT: 

"The  sentence  which  the  Council  of  War  pronounced  on  the 
14th  instant,  has  been  confirmed  at  these  headquarters,  and  to-day, 
at  ten  o'clock  of  the  morning  the  prisoners  were  notified  thereof, 
and  at  three  o'clock  this  afternoon  they  will  be  shot. 

"ESCOBBDO." 

A  petition,  asking  Maximilian's  life,  signed  by  his  Mexican  law- 
yers, Messrs.  Mariane  Riva  Palacio  and  Rafael  Martinez  de  la  Torre, 
was  peremptorily  denied.  Again  they  sought  the  President,  and 


AN"  UNWRITTEN"  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  423 

begged  at  his  hands  a  brief  respite.  Five  days  were' granted,  and 
an  order  sent  by  telegraph  to  Escobedo  to  stay  the  execution  until 
the  19th. 

Juarez  had  his  headquarters  during  the  trial  at  San  Luis  Potosi. 
Hither  came  Baron  Von  A.  V.  Magnus,  the  Prussian  Minister  near 
the  Imperial  Government  of  Mexico.  He  came  to  intercede  in  behalf 
of  Maximilian,  and  to  do  all  that  was  possible  to  be  done  in  his 
behalf.  He,  too,  visited  Juarez,  represented  to  him  the  uselessness 
of  the  sacrifice,  pointed  out  the  impossibility  of  any  further  foreign 
intervention  in  the  future,  and  in  the  name  of  mercy,  and  for  the 
sake  of  Christian  charity  and  forgiveness,  asked  the  life  of  Max- 
imilian at  the  hands  of  the  President  of  the  Republic. 

It  was  of  no  avail.  As  cold  as  the  snow  upon  the  summit  of 
Popocatapetl  was  the  heart  of  Juarez. 

Baron  Magnus  abandoned  the  effort  and  went  from  San  Luis  to 
Queretaro.  On  the  15th  news  came  that  the  Empress  Carlota  was 
dead.  General  Mejia  was  chosen  to  convey  this  information  to  the 
Emperor,  which  he  did  gently  and  delicately.  Maximilian  wept  a 
little,  went  away  alone  for  a  few  brief  moments,  and  came  back  a 
king  again.  In  his  last  hours  he  meant  to  be  strong  to  every  fate. 

In  the  afternoon  he  wrote  to  Baron  Largo,  a  member  of  his  per- 
sonal staff,  and  one  who  had  been  banished  by  General  Escobedo  on 
the  14th  of  March  : 

"  I  have  just  learned  that  my  poor  wife  has  died,  and  though 
the  news  affects  my  heart,  yet,  on  the  other  hand  and  under  the 
present  circumstances,  it  is  a  consolation.  I  have  but  one  wish  on 
earth,  and  that  is  that  my  body  may  be  buried  next  to  that  of  my  poor 
wife.  I  entrust  you  with  this,  as  the  representative  of  Austria.  I 
ask  you  that  my  legal  heirs  will  take  the  same  care  of  those  who 
surrounded  me  and  my  servants,  as  though  the  Empress  and  I  had 
lived." 

On  the  18th  Baron  Magnus  arrived  in  Queretaro,  and  imme- 
diately visited  the  Emperor.  Still  hoping  against  hope,  he  again 
put  himself  in  communication  with  Juarez.  Maximilian  was  to 
be  shot  on  the  19th,  and  at  midnight  on  the  18th  Baron  Magnus  sent 
the  following  message: 
"  His  EXCELLENCY  SENOK  LERDO  DE  TEJADA: 

"  Having  reached  Queretaro  to-day,  I  am  sure  that  the  three 
persons  condemned  on  the  14th  died  morally  last  Sunday,  and 
that  the  world  so  estimates  it,  as  they  had  made  every  disposition 
to  die,  and  expected  every  instant,  for  an  hour,  to  be  carried  to  the 
.place  where  they  were  to  receive  death,  before  it  was  possible  to 
communicate  to  them  the  order  suspending  the  act. 

"The  humane  customs  of  our  epoch  do  not  permit  that,  after 
having  suffered  that  horrible  punishment,  they  should  be  made  to 
die  the  second  time  to-morrow. 


4C4  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO; 

"  In  the  name,  then,  of  humanity  and  heaven,  I  conjure  you  to 
order  their  lives  not  to  be  taken;  and  I  repeat  to  you  again  that  I  am 
sure  that  my  Sovereign,  his  Majesty  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  all  the 
monarchs  of  Europe  united  by  the  ties  of  blood  with  the  imprisoned 
Prince,  namely,  his  brother,  the  Emperor  of  Austria;  his  cousin,  the 
Queen  of  the  British  Empire;  his  brother-in-law,  the  King  of  the 
Belgians,  and  his  cousins,  the  Queen  of  Spain  and  the  Kings  of  Italy 
and  Sweden,  will  easily  understand  how  to  give  His  Excellency 
Senor  Don  Benito  Juarez  all  the  requisite  securities  that  none  of  the 
three  prisoners  will  ever  return  to  walk  on  the  Mexican  Territory. 

"A.  V.  MAGNUS." 

To  this  appeal   the    present   President   of  the  Republic,  then 
Juarez's  Secretary  of  State,  sent  the  following  reply: 
"  SENOR  BARON  A.  V.  MAGNUS  : 

"  I  am  pained  to  tell  you,  in  answer  to  the  telegram  which  you 
have  been  pleased  to  send  to  me  to-night,  that,  as  I  declared  to  you 
day  before  yesterday,  in  this  city,  the  President  of  the  Republic 
does  not  believe  it  possible  to  grant  the  pardon  of  the  Archduke 
Maximilian,  through  the  gravest  considerations  of  justice,  and  of 
the  necessity  of  assuring  peace  to  the  Republic. 

"  SEBASTIAN  LERDO  DE  TEJADA." 

No  hope.  Maximilian  knew  and  felt  it  from  the  first,  and  so  he 
had  long  ago  made  up  his  mind  to  die.  He  made  one  more  effort 
however,  to  save  the  lives  of  his  companions.  On  the  18th,  the  day 
before  his  execution,  he  sent  the  following  dispatch  to  the  Presi- 
dent: 
"  SENOR  BENITO  JUAREZ: 

"  I  desire  that  you  may  preserve  the  lives  of  Don  Miguel  Mir- 
amon  and  Don  Tomas  Mejia,  who  day  before  yesterday  suffered  all 
the  tortures  and  bitterness  of  death  ;  and,  as  I  manifested  on  being 
taken  prisoner,  I  should  be  the  only  victim. 

"MAXIMILIAN." 

To  this  touching  appeal  there  never  came  an  answer.  The  sullen 
and  savage  Indian  was  losing  caste  in  this  contrast  with  the  chival- 
rous and  Christian  European,  and  to  escape  further  humiliation,  he 
added  to  his  cruelty  the  natural  national  characteristic  of  stoicism. 

At  about  half  past  eleven  o'clock  on  the  night  of  the  18th,  Esco- 
bedo  visited  Maximilian.  The  interview  was  very  brief.  He  asked 
the  Emperor  for  his  photograph,  which  was  given  him,  shook  hands 
with  him  at  parting,  and  strode  away  a  guilty,  swarthy,  conscience- 
less murderer,  not  daring  to  look  back  upon  the  young,  dauntless 
face,  so  fair  and  so  fresh  in  its  nobleness  and  beauty. 

The  Emperor  next  prepared  himself  for  death.    He  took  from  ' 
his  finger  his  marriage  ring,  and  gave  it  to  his  physician,  Dr.  Samuel 
Basch,   requesting  him  to  carry  it  to  the  Archduchess  his  mother. 
He  still  supposed  his  wife  to  be  dead,  and  God  in  His  mercy  let  him 
die  so. 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  425 

There  were  yet  some  letters  to  write.  The  first  was  to  Baron 
Largo: 

"  I  have  nothing  to  look  for  in  this  world  ;  and  my  last  wishes 
are  limited  to  my  mortal  remains,  which  soon  will  be  free  from 
suffering  and  under  the  favor  of  those  who  outlive  me.  My  physi- 
cian, Dr.  Basch,  will  have  my  body  transported  to  Vera  Cruz. 
Two  servants,  Gull  and  Tudas,  will  be  the  only  ones  who  will  ac- 
company him.  I  have  given  orders  that  my  body  be  carried  to  Vera 
Cruz  without  any  pomp,  and  no  extraordinary  ceremony  be  made  on 
board.  I  await  death  calmly,  and  I  equally  wish  to  enjoy  calmness 
in  the  coffin.  So  arrange  it,  dear  Baron,  that  Dr.  Basch  and  my 
two  servants  be  transported  to  Europe  in  one  of  the  two  war  vessels. 

"  I  wish  to  be  buried  by  the  side  of  my  poor  wife.  If  the  report 
of  the  death  of  my  poor  wife  has  no  foundation,  my  body  should  be 
deposited  in  some  place  until  the  Empress  may  meet  me  through 
death. 

"Have  the  goodness  to  transmit  the  necessary  orders  to  the 
Captain  of  the  ship  de  Groeller.  Have  likewise  the  goodness  to  do 
all  you  can  to  have  the  widow  of  my  faithful  companion  in  arms, 
Miramon,  go  to  Europe  in  one  of  the  two  war  vessels.  I  rely  the 
more  upon  this  wish  being  complied  with,  inasmuch  as  I  have  rec- 
ommended her  to  place  herself  under  my  mother  at  Vienna. 

"Yours, 

"MAXIMILIAN. 
Queretaro,  in  the  Prison  of  the  Capuchinas,  18th  of  June,  1867. 

The  second  letter  was  again  to  Juarez: 

"  QUERETARO,  June  19, 1867. 
"  SENOR  BENITO  JUAREZ  : 

"  About  to  receive  death  in  consequence  of  having  wished  to 
prove  whether  new  political  institutions  could  succeed  in  putting  an 
end  to  the  bloody  civil  war,  which  has  devastated  for  so  many  years 
this  unfortunate  country,  I  shall  lose  my  life  with  pleasure  if  its 
sacrifice  can  contribute  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  my  new 
country.  Fully  persuaded  that  nothing  solid  can  be  founded  on  a 
soil  drenched  in  blood  and  agitated  by  violent  commotions,  I 
conjure  you,  in  the  most  solemn  manner  and  with  the  true  sincerity 
of  the  moments  in  which  I  find  myself,  that  my  blood  may  be  the 
last  to  be  spilt ;  that  the  same  perseverance,  which  I  was  pleased  to 
recognize  and  esteem  in  the  midst  of  prosperity — that  with  which 
you  have  defended  the  cause  which  has  just  triumphed,  may 
consecrate  that  blood  to  the  most  noble  task  of  reconciling  the  minds 
of  the  people,  and  in  founding  in  a  stable  and  durable  manner  the 
peace  and  tranquility  of  this  unfortunate  country. 

"  MAXIMILIAN." 

This  was  all.  The  morning  broke  fair  and  white  in  the  sky,  and 
at  half  past  six  three  carriages  drew  up  in  front  of  the  main  gate  of 


426  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITION  TO  MEXICO ; 

the  Convent  of  the  Capuchinas.  The  bells  rang  in  all  the  steeples, 
there  were  soldiers  everywhere,  and  long  lines  of  glittering  steel 
that  rose  and  fell  in  yet  the  soft,  sweet  hush  of  the  morning. 

Into  the  first  carriage  got  Maximilian  and  Father  Soria,  a  priest. 
The  Emperor's  dress  was  very  plain.  He  wore  a  single-breasted 
black  frock  coat,  with  all  the  buttons  buttoned  except  the  last  one, 
a  black  vest,  neck-tie  and  pantaloons,  plain  cavalry  boots  and  a 
wide-brimmed  hat,  or  sombrero. 

In  the  second  carriage  there  came  Miramon  and  his  priest,  in 
the  third,  Mejia  and  his.  Then  the  solemn  cortege  started.  In  the 
extreme  advance  five  cavalry  rode,  the  one  behind  the  other,  with 
an  interval  between  of  twenty  paces,  and  yet  further  in  front  of  the 
five  there  rode  a  solitary  Corporal.  A  company  of  infantry,  eighty 
rank  and  file,  came  after  the  cavalry.  Then  followed  the  carriages, 
escorted  by  a  battalion  of  sharpshooters,  one-half  of  whom  flanked 
each  side  of  the  road,  marching  parallel  with  the  vehicles.  A  rear 
guard  of  250  mounted  men  closed  the  mournful  procession. 

The  sun  arose  and  poured  its  unclouded  rays  over  the  city.  All 
the  people  were  in  the  streets.  On  the  faces  of  the  multitude  there 
were  evidences  of  genuine  and  unaffected  sorrow.  Someamong  the 
crowd  lifted  their  hats  as  the  victims  passed  along,  some  turned 
away  their  heads  and  wept,  and  some,  even  amid  the  soldiers  and 
amid  the  hostile  ranks  of  the  Liberals,  fell  upon  their  knees  and 
wept. 

The  place  of  surrender  was  to  be  the  place  of  execution.  North- 
west of  the  city  a  mile  or  more,  the  Hill  of  the  Bells,  El  Cerro  de  las 
Campanas,  upreared  itself.  It  was  enclosed  on  three  sides  by  six 
thousand  soldiers  of  all  arms,  leaving  the  rear  or  uncovered  side 
resting  upon  a  wall. 

It  was  half  past  7  o'clock  when  the  carriages  halted  at  the  place 
of  execution.  Maximilian  was  the  first  to  alight.  He  stepped 
proudly  down,  took  a  handkerchief  from  his  pocket  and  his  hat  from 
his  head,  and  beckoned  for  one  of  his  Mexican  servants  to  approach. 

The  man  came. 

"  Take  these,"  the  Emperor  said.   "  They  are  all  I  have  to  give." 

The  faithful  Indian  took  them,  kissed  them,  cried  over  them,  fell 
upon  his  knees  a  few  moments  in  prayer  to  the  good  God  for  the 
good  master,  and  arose  a  hero. 

In  front  of  the  dead  wall  three  crosses  had  been  firmly  imbedded 
in  the  ground.  On  each  side  was  a  placard  bearing  the  name  of  the 
victims  to  be  immolated  there.  That  upon  the  right  was  where  the 
Emperor  was  to  be  shot,  that  in  the  center  was  Miramon,  that  upon 
the  left  for  the  grim  old  stoic  and  fighter,  Mejia. 

Maximilian  stroked  down  the  luxuriant  growth  of  his  long  yellow 
beard,  as  it  was  his  constant  habit  to  do,  and  walked  firmly  to  his 
place-, 


AN  UNWRITTEN  LEAF  OF  THE  WAR.  427 

The  three  men  embraced  each  other  three  times.  To  Mejia  he 
said: 

"  We  will  meet  in  heaven." 

Mejia  bowed,  smiled,  and  laid  his  hand  upon  his  heart. 

To  Miramon  he  said: 

"  Brave  men  are  respected  by  sovereigns — permit  me  to  give  you 
the  place  of  honor." 

As  he  said  this  he  took  Miramon  gently  by  the  arm  and  led  him 
to  the  center  cross,  embracing  him  as  he  left  him  for  the  last  time. 

Escobedo  was  not  on  the  ground:  An  aide  de-camp,  however, 
brought  permission  for  each  of  the  victims  to  deliver  a  farewell 
address.  The  Emperor  spoke  briefly: 

"Persons  of  my  rank  and  birth  are  brought  into  the  world  either 
to  insure  the  welfare  of  the  people,  or  to  die  as  martyrs.  I  did  not 
come  to  Mexico  from  motives  of  ambition.  I  came  at  the  earnest 
entreaty  of  those  who  desired  the  welfare  of  our  country.  Mexicans, 
I  pray  that  my  blood  may  be  the  last  to  be  shed  for  our  unhappy 
country,  and  may  it  insure  the  happiness  of  the  nation.  Mexicans  ! 
Long  live  Mexico  !  " 

Mejia  drew  himself  up  as  a  soldier  on  duty,  looked  up  once  at 
the  unclouded  sky,  and  around  upon  all  the  fragrant  and  green- 
growing  things,  and  bowed  his  head  without  speaking. 

Miramon  drew  from  his  pocket  a  small  piece  of  paper  and  read 
as  follows: 

"Mexicans!  behold  me,  condemned  by  a  Council  of  War,  and 
condemned  to  death  as  a  traitor.  In  these  moments  which  do  not 
belong  to  me,  in  which  my  life  is  already  that  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  before  the  entire  world  I  proclaim  that  I  have  never  been  a 
traitor  to  my  country.  I  have  defended  my  opinions,  but  my  chil- 
dren will  never  be  ashamed  of  their  father.  I  have  not  the  stain  of 
treason,  neither  will  it  pass  to  my  children.  Mexicans!  Long 
live  Mexico!  Long  live  the  Emperor!" 

When  Miramon  ceased  reading,  Maximilian  placed  his  hand  on 
his  breast,  threw  up  his  head,  and  cried  out  in  a  singularly  calm 
and  penetrating  voice,  "Fire!" 

Eighteen  muskets  were  discharged  as  one  musket.  Mejia  and 
Miramon  died  instantly.  Four  bullets  struck  the  Emperor,  three  in 
the  left  and  one  in  the  right  breast.  Three  of  these  bullets  passed 
entirely  through  his  body,  coming  out  high  up  on  the  left  shoulder, 
the  other  remained  imbedded  in  the  right  lung.  The  Emperor  fell 
a  little  sideways  and  upon  his  right  side,  exclaiming  almost  gently 
and  sadly: 

"  Oh !    Hombre!  Hombre !    Oh !  man !  Oh !  man  1" 

He  was  not  yet  dead.  A  soldier  went  close  up  to  him  and  fired 
into  his  stomach.  The  Emperor  moved  slightly  as  if  still  sensible  to 
pain.  Another  came  out  from  the  firing  party,  and,  putting  the 


428  SHELBY'S  EXPEDITITION  TO  MEXICO; 

muzzle  of  his  musket  close  up  to  his  breast,  shot  him  fairly  through 
the  heart. 

The  tragedy  was  ended;  Mexican  vengeance  was  satisfied;  the 
soul  of  the  unfortunate  prince  was  with  its  God,  and  until  the 
judgment  day  the  blood  of  one  who  was  too  young  and  too  gentle 
to  die,  will  cry  out  from  the  ground,  even  as  the  blood  of  Abel. 
Too  generous  to  desert  his  comrades,  too  pure  in  heart  to  rule  as 
he  should  have  ruled,  too  confiding  to  keep  a  crown  bestowed  by  a 
race  bred  to  revolution,  and  too  merciful  in  all  the  ways  and  walks 
of  life  to  maintain  fast  hold  upon  a  throne  carved  out  from  conquest 
and  military  power,  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  imperial  in  manhood 
and  heroic  in  the  discharge  of  every  duty. 


THE  END. 


